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(January 17, 2007) Jovian Capital Corporation’s subsidiary, the Gibraltar Consulting Group, announced Wednesday the launch of the CIBC International Yield Deposit Note Series 3 and CIBC International Deposit Note Series 4.

Gibraltar hopes the new series of notes can replicate the success of the Series 1 and 2 notes that recently closed with sales in excess of $45 million.

The two notes are linked to a portfolio composed of three international funds, the ABN AMRO Global Emerging Markets Bond Fund, the ABN AMRO Asian Tigers Equity Fund and the ABN AMRO Eastern European Equity Fund. All three are managed by ABN AMRO Asset Management.

Gibraltar said that some of the key features of the notes include potential for global portfolio exposure; diversified exposure to sectors; principal protection if held to maturity; and an opportunity for potential quarterly income.

Gibraltar president Raj Lala believes his company’s collaboration with CIBC and ABN AMRO is a good fit for investors looking to diversify their portfolios with some foreign equity.

“Our aim is to provide advisors and investors with creative and proven investment solutions to help them to achieve their goals. We believe that these notes enable investors to increase global exposure in their portfolio while providing principal protection and the opportunity for potential quarterly income,” Lala said.

The notes will be available for sale until March 9, 2007.

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Norshield hearing delayed until April

(January 17, 2007) The Ontario Securities Commission will hold its next hearing on allegations against Norshield on April 4, 2007. Counsel for the respondents provided the regulator with a status report on the case earlier this week.

Hedge fund manager John Xanthoudakis and two other Norshield officers could face fines of up to $1 million each on charges of breaching securities law and conduct contrary to the public interest.

Norshield and its fund arm, Olympus United Group, have been under a trading suspension since May 2005. Allegations against the firm include failure to keep proper records, filing a misleading offering memorandum, misleading OSC staff and acting against the best interests of investors.

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Questrade offers gold to RSPs

(January 17, 2007) Questrade Inc. and Kitco Metals Inc. will offer Canadians the opportunity to purchase gold, stored at the Royal Canadian Mint, to invest in registered savings accounts such as RRSPs and RESPs.

Physical precious metals have only been eligible to be held within registered accounts since February 23, 2005, when the Canadian government changed investment regulation in its 2005 Federal Budget, Questrade said. It adds that since the changes, Canadians have had access to RSP-eligible gold only through individual shares, funds and certificates.

Questrade’s CEO, Edward Kholodenko, points out that investors can now own real gold as well as trade it within their registered plans.

“Holding actual commodities in a registered plan is significant for investors,” Kholodenko said. “Not only will the registered plan owner save on the management fees associated with funds, he or she will be able to buy, hold and trade real gold on the spot market. This means plan owners can take immediate advantage of market movement instead of waiting for the fund manager to do it.”

Eligible gold products are investment grade bars and Royal Canadian Mint coins with a minimum purity of 99.5%.

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Russell launches global equity indexes

(January 17, 2007) The Russell Investment Group launched on Wednesday a fully integrated family of global stock indexes.

The Russell Global Indexes are meant to provide investors worldwide with a set of benchmarks that will cover small-cap and large-cap companies in developed and emerging markets.

The index uses the broad-market Russell 3000 Index as its U.S. component, and is divided into 300 core indexes that cover 63 countries. It will also cover small, midsize and large capitalization tiers and sectors.

The managing director of Russell’s indexes, David Geiger, thinks its new indexes provide a transparency that better reflects the global marketplace. “There is no sampling. The market dictates the index constituents. Our global index is designed to capture all sufficiently liquid stocks that are actively traded and readily accessible to global investors,” Geiger said.

“The 10,000 or so companies in this global benchmark are selected by float-adjusted market capitalization and their trading liquidity threshold, giving investors a cohesive and consistent framework for measuring investment performance globally — with no gaps or overlaps,” Geiger added.

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Exporter confidence still low, but fears about dollar are declining

(January 17, 2007) A survey from Export Development Canada reports that the confidence levels among Canadian exporters remain low, rising only marginally because they expect a moderation in the value of the Canadian dollar.

The results of the EDC’s semi-annual Trade Confidence Index, suggest that Canadian exporters are more optimistic about their own trade prospects than they are about the macro-level domestic or global economies. Expectations for growth in Canadian international trade opportunities, as well as foreign sales, improved significantly.

In contrast, expectations about improvements in domestic economic conditions declined significantly while views on global economic conditions worsened from an already low level.

The biggest change in exporters’ attitudes, the survey reports, was related to the value of the Canadian dollar against the U.S. dollar. Less than a quarter of respondents now believe that the Canadian dollar will increase in value in the coming six months, compared to an overwhelming 63% in the spring of 2006. Two-thirds of exporters report that the value of the dollar is critical to their ability to compete in foreign markets.

“The TCI survey is suggesting that Canadian exporters, although stressed, feel that prospects will improve and that the Canadian dollar has peaked,” said Peter Hall, EDC’s vice-president and deputy chief economist. “Given the importance that exporters have attached to the Canadian dollar in this survey, any decline in its value should be a welcome relief compared to previous fears.”

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Report argues public sectors pensions are unfair

(January 17, 2007) The gap is widening between Canada’s public and private sectors in terms of retirement trends and pension plans, according to a position paper released Wednesday by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

The CFIB said its research shows that since the late 1980s, the public sector has driven the early retirement trend. The proportion of early retirees within the public sector was around 56% in the year 2005, while in the private sector, it was just over 33%, and for self-employed individuals, it was well below the public sector rate at only 20%.

According to the CFIB, from the mid-1970s to today, the average age of retirement for the self-employed remained stable at 66. For private-sector employees, the average age of retirement decreased moderately over the same period from 65 to 62 years of age. For the public sector, the average age of retirement has decreased from 64 to 59.

The CFIB points out that one of the major drivers of this trend is a growing difference between the types of pension plans in the public and private sectors. While the private sector has been moving toward defined contribution plans, the public sector has stayed with defined benefit plans, which, the CFIB believes, are generally considered more generous for employees.

CFIB president Catherine Swift thinks this preference by the public sector for defined benefit plans is unfair.

“We are on our way to a two-tier retirement system,” she said. “There is no valid reason why Canadian taxpayers are on the hook for public sector pension plans when in fact half of the Canadians working in the private sector will not even benefit from any private pension plan upon retirement,” she said.

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(01/17/07)