Cenovus selling Palliser assets in Alberta to Torxen for $1.3B + MORE Oct 19th

Globalnews.caBill Morneau to place assets in blind trust after conflict of interest allegationsGlobalnews.caMinister of Finance Bill Morneau makes a tax reform announcement in Erinsville, Ont., Thursday Oct., 19, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lars Hagberg. X. – A A +. Listen. Finance Minister Bill Morneau has confirmed he will be placing his personal assets in a …The Thursday news briefing: An at-a-glance survey of some top storiesCityNewsBill Morneau To Establish Blind Trust, Divest Assets In Family CompanyHuffington Post CanadaMorneau promises fiscal update next weekBNNReutersall 161 news articles »

Cenovus Energy Inc. says it has agreed to sell its Palliser crude oil and natural gas assets in southeastern Alberta to Torxen Energy and Schlumberger for $1.3 billion.

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What’s the single biggest fear retirees face? Undoubtedly it’s the prospect of outliving their money. And as this column has pointed out before, retiring in this second decade of the 21st century poses challenges for just about any healthy person who lacks an inflation-indexed employer-sponsored Defined Benefit (DB) pension plan. We’re living longer and interest rates are still mired near historic lows after nine long years.
Any financial advisor will tell you the solution to this dilemma is to stop reaching for minuscule “guaranteed” investment returns from instruments like GICs or bonds, and instead embrace the higher risks—but potentially higher returns—of the stock market. Historically, equities have generated on average a 10% annual return, which means you should be able to double your capital in a matter of seven or eight years.
READ: The safe, unloved, amazing GIC
It’s in this challenging environment that I recently read two recently published books that tackle these themes head on…

Embattled Finance Minister Bill Morneau says he plans to put his substantial personal assets in a blind trust, hoping to tamp down an escalating controversy over conflict of interest allegations that have threatened to undermine the federal Liberal government.
Morneau also says the plan is to eventually sell off all of his and his family’s shares in Morneau Shepell, the human resources and pension management firm that bears his name.
The former businessman — who said Thursday he currently owns about a million shares in the company — had insisted he made sure to disclose all his assets to the federal ethics watchdog when he came into office, and he that he followed her recommendations very carefully to avoid any conflicts of interest.
“I perhaps naively thought that following the rules and respecting the recommendations of the ethics commissioner … would be what Canadians would expect,” Morneau told a news conference.
“In fact, what I have seen over the last week is I need to do more…

Canada’s ETF industry has been growing at a steady clip for a number of years now, but 2017 is turning into its best year yet. According to BlackRock’s Follow the Flow data through September, exchange traded funds trading on Canada’s stock exchanges have attracted more than $18.7 billion in new money, shattering the previous high water mark for annual inflows of $16.8 billion reached in 2015.
Here are five trends that have helped drive flows into new record territory this year.
1. Core exposures
Core ETFs have long been a major component of the ETF growth story, but recent flows suggest the popularity of these generally low cost funds offering broad-based exposure to specific markets and sectors may be stronger than ever with investors, including institutions who may increasingly be using them as an alternative to more expensive futures contracts. To this point, 48% of total Canadian ETF flows has gone into core funds since the iShares Core series of ETFs were introduced to Canada in March 2014, even though 90% of new funds launched in that same time frame have been ETFs with non-core exposures…