Canada

Stelco, a unit of Cleveland-Cliffs, has told the Canadian government it is proceeding with hundreds of job cuts at its production sites in Ontario despite an ultimatum issued by Ottawa earlier this week to avoid the layoffs, the Globe and Mail reported on Saturday. On Sept. 28, Stelco announced plans to lay off up to 500 steelworkers in Hamilton and Nanticoke, Ont., saying it could not operate profitably mainly due to the impact of elevated U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel. When the federal government approved Cliffs' $3.4B acquisition of Stelco in 2024, the Cleveland-based steelmaker agreed to several legally binding terms, including a condition to maintain at least the same number of unionized workers in Canada for five years. On Monday, Canadian Industry Minister Mélanie Joly issued a five-day ultimatum forcing the company to come up with a plan to comply with its employment guarantees under the Investment Canada Act or face possible legal action. Citing a legal provision related to the pledges and the government's ICA guidelines, Stelco president and general counsel Paul Simon said in a letter to Joly that the company has not breached its commitments, adding that changes in circumstances may necessitate the non-enforcement or renegotiation of undertakings. A spokesperson for Joly confirmed receiving the letter.

BlackBerry's analyst price targets have diverged, with one firm raising its fair value estimate from CA$11.96 to CA$12.71 while another cut its target to US$9.50 from US$10.30. Canaccord pointed to QNX as the main pillar of the BlackBerry story, highlighting record Q2 revenue of $80.3M and an 87% gross margin in that segment, and noted that BlackBerry lifted its FY27 QNX revenue guidance to $320M and secured a first Alloy Kore design win that adds more than $100M to the royalty backlog. Despite that strength, Canaccord cut its price target to US$9.50 from US$10.30 and kept a Hold rating, citing continued weakness in Secure Communications. RBC Capital maintained a Sector Perform rating and a US$9 price target, expecting a healthy Q2 update with revenue, EBITDA, and EPS possibly slightly exceeding its own and street estimates, but flagging that sentiment could be sensitive to commentary on the timing of Alloy Kore design wins and progress in physical AI and GEM. The fair value revision also lifted the revenue growth assumption from 9.41% to 9.55%, raised the net profit margin from 18.39% to 21.15%, lowered the future P/E from 43.53x to 37.86x, and edged the discount rate down from 7.83% to 7.81%.

Descartes Systems Group unveiled the Descartes Agent Control Plane at its Innovation Forum in Chicago in early October 2026, an AI-driven orchestration layer built on its Global Logistics Network to coordinate multi-step workflows across applications and trading partners under defined policies and human oversight. By embedding AI agents directly into logistics processes while enforcing customer-defined guardrails and full traceability, Descartes aims to make automation more trustworthy for supply chain operators who need faster responses without giving up control. Among the Innovation Forum announcements, the MacroPoint OpsForce offering looks most relevant because it shows how Descartes is already applying AI to real time tracking and exception handling, the same problem set the Agent Control Plane targets at a broader workflow level. Descartes Systems Group's narrative projects $1.0 billion revenue and $275.4 million earnings by 2029, requiring 11.3% yearly revenue growth and about a $111.6 million earnings increase from $163.8 million today. Three Simply Wall St Community valuations cluster between C$128.28 and C$161.30 per share, with a CA$128.28 fair value implying a 9% upside to the current price.

Chinese auto giant Geely Auto announced on the 9th that it will begin selling vehicles in Canada in 2027. Although Canada's market is smaller than that of the United States, Chinese manufacturers are showing interest in expanding their operations in Canada with an eye toward future entry into the U.S. market. The company did not disclose details such as the models it will sell in Canada or their price ranges, but said it is moving forward with establishing a local subsidiary and building a sales and service network. Geely Auto, a company under Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, operates brands including the mass-market Geely and the premium Zeekr, and is working to expand sales channels for electric and other electrified vehicles overseas, including in Europe.

Gran Tierra Energy stockholders approved the sale of the company's Colombian and Ecuadorian businesses to Maurel & Prom for approximately $1.33B. Gran Tierra expects to receive about $315M in net cash proceeds from the deal, including $250M at closing and $65M payable 364 days later. The transaction still requires regulatory approvals in Colombia and Ecuador, with closing targeted for December 31, 2026. Gran Tierra expects to be debt-free after the sale and plans to use part of the proceeds for a share repurchase, subject to completion of the sale and board approval. GTE stock traded about 3% higher at roughly $10.90 in the after-hours session.

GoldHaven Resources Corp. reported that the final hole of its 2026 drill program at the Kuhn tungsten-skarn target, part of its district-scale Magno Project in northern British Columbia's Cassiar District, intersected skarn at depth roughly 80 metres south along strike from the lower skarn reported in GOH26-04. The company completed eight holes totaling 1,729 metres of fan-style drilling from two pads about 80 metres apart, the first modern systematic drill test of the target, with assays still pending. The lower skarn interval in GOH26-04 is currently interpreted at approximately 20 to 45 metres true thickness, an interpretation the company calls preliminary. The drill has now mobilized to the D Zone polymetallic target, where historical drilling returned 7.6 metres grading 240 g/t silver, 4.73% lead and 4.74% zinc, a result that predates NI 43-101 and has not been verified by a Qualified Person. The exploration push comes as Washington backs domestic supply: in September the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency awarded an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract with a ceiling of up to $2 billion for tungsten ores, concentrates and sodium tungstate for the national stockpile, and the Department of War committed a separate $450 million investment to the same domestic supplier. Beginning January 1, 2027, U.S. defense procurement rules restrict tungsten sourced from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, and a U.S. Commerce Department order in effect since August 27, 2026 requires domestic sellers of tungsten waste and scrap to allocate monthly sales to domestic buyers for one year.

McEwen agreed to sell its Fuller and Paymaster properties in Timmins, Ontario, to Discovery Mining subsidiary Dome Mine for $55M, comprising $5M in cash and $50M in Discovery common shares. The sale includes Lexam VG Gold's wholly-owned Fuller property, its 60% interest in the Paymaster property held in joint venture with Dome, and a surface rights parcel owned by VG Holdings; both properties are part of McEwen's Fox complex land position in the Timmins mining district. McEwen said it plans to use the sale proceeds to invest across its operations and development projects to support a goal of producing 250K–300K gold equivalent oz annually by 2030 with minimal to no share dilution. The company said its operations and development at the Fox complex will remain centered on the Froome, Stock and Grey Fox properties. McEwen shares gained 4.5% in Friday's trading.

The Canadian dollar weakened on Friday after an unexpectedly sharp decline in employment reinforced concerns about the domestic economy and reduced expectations for a Bank of Canada interest-rate hike this month. Canada's economy lost 68,300 jobs in September, Statistics Canada reported, sharply missing economists' expectations for a gain of 9,200 positions, following a loss of 41,700 jobs in August and bringing employment losses to 110,000 over two months, while the unemployment rate rose to 6.5% from 6.4%. The disappointing report complicated the Bank of Canada's policy outlook ahead of its October 28 meeting, as a weakening labour market could discourage policymakers from raising interest rates even as persistent inflation risks and elevated energy prices remain concerns. Job losses were concentrated in the public sector, particularly healthcare, social assistance and education, while manufacturing employment declined by 12,700 positions and employment among young people aged 15 to 24 fell by 48,000. Average hourly wages for permanent employees rose 2.3% year over year in September, accelerating from 2.0% in August, and oil prices also weighed on the currency as Brent crude fell towards $103 a barrel and U.S. West Texas Intermediate traded near $91 after U.S. President Donald Trump said Washington would not attack Iran before the November midterm elections.

BlackBerry Limited has secured its first Alloy Kore design win, the largest in QNX history, after Coretura selected the platform for its next-generation high-performance compute architecture. Coretura is the commercial-vehicle software joint venture between Volvo Group and Daimler Truck, and the planned deployment spans multiple software domains. The award is expected to add more than $100 million in future royalties to QNX, whose royalty backlog stood at approximately $950 million at the end of fiscal 2026. Management said the Alloy Kore average selling price per instance in the Coretura win is roughly three times the customer's current QNX operating-system deployment, though it does not expect the deal to materially change BlackBerry's fiscal 2027 revenue profile because most royalties will be realized after vehicles enter production. BlackBerry said it is pursuing additional Alloy Kore opportunities with global automakers and major Tier 1 suppliers, particularly in Europe and Asia.

BlackBerry Limited raised its full-year revenue and adjusted EBITDA outlook after fiscal second-quarter 2027 results showed accelerating growth in its QNX segment. QNX delivered record quarterly revenue of $80.3 million, up 27.3% year over year, while adjusted EBITDA rose 41.5% to $29 million on a 36% adjusted EBITDA margin, and the segment carried an approximately $950 million royalty backlog at the end of fiscal 2026. BlackBerry generated $29.3 million of operating cash flow and $28.1 million of free cash flow in the quarter, with first-half operating cash flow improving to about $34 million from a $14 million use of cash a year earlier, and management expects approximately $115 million of operating cash flow for fiscal 2027. Secure Communications revenue rose 2% year over year to $60.9 million with annual recurring revenue of $221 million, but dollar-based net retention slipped to 91% and segment adjusted EBITDA fell 18% to $8 million. The stock trades at a trailing 12-month EV/Sales ratio of 7.96 against a five-year median of 3.84, and carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) with a Growth Score of A, a Momentum Score of A and a Value Score of F.

Shell said Friday it agreed to acquire a 30% non-operated interest in the Bay du Nord project offshore Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada, while Equinor will retain a 70% interest and remain the operator; financial terms were not disclosed. Shell said the transaction provides an attractive entry point, expected returns above its hurdle rate, and exposure to an established resource base with potential longer-term growth. Bay du Nord is a phased subsea development tied back to a floating production, storage and offloading vessel, with planned gross production capacity of 160K-175K boe/day and first oil anticipated in 2031, and it is currently finalizing the front-end engineering and design. Equinor said the deal supports the continued maturation of Bay du Nord towards an investment decision currently targeted for early 2027.

AST SpaceMobile and TELUS have completed their first integration test connecting TELUS' terrestrial wireless network with AST SpaceMobile's satellite based system for direct smartphone to satellite service in Canada. The milestone comes amid a volatile stretch for AST SpaceMobile shares, which fell 6.13% over the past day, 13.90% over the past month and 31.80% year to date, closing at $56.93. The most followed narrative pegs fair value at $170 per share, framing the selloff as a valuation question, with forecast revenue rising 51.9% per year and expectations that ASTS becomes profitable within three years. Set against a current market value of about $23.60b and a reported net loss of $618.761m on $115.299m of revenue, the bull case leans on future execution, while analysts hold an average price target of $77.94, 36.9% above the last close. The story can break if satellite deployment slips or if carrier partners delay turning trials into meaningful and recurring service revenue.

TD Bank Group has received approval from Canada's banking regulator, OSFI, for a new share buyback program. The program authorizes the repurchase and cancellation of up to C$10B worth of common shares, capped at 61M shares. The new share repurchase program is scheduled to commence on October 9, 2026.

Definity Financial reported that severe weather-related catastrophes, including floods and wildfires across several Canadian provinces, reduced its third-quarter 2026 underwriting income by about CA$190 million after reinsurance recoveries. The CA$190,000,000 hit to underwriting income sharpens investor focus on whether the Canada-focused property and casualty insurer's risk management and pricing can keep pace with rising climate-related losses. Despite the catastrophe impact, the company recently affirmed its quarterly dividend at CA$0.215 per share, signaling that management has not yet adjusted its capital return plans. Definity's investment narrative projects CA$7.7 billion in revenue and CA$712.7 million in earnings by 2029, with two fair value estimates from the Simply Wall St Community spanning roughly CA$87.64 to CA$106.30.

FactSet shares rose 4.8% in the afternoon session after the financial data provider announced an expanded partnership with Scotiabank's Scotia Wealth Management to deepen the integration of its platform into Scotia's advisor and investment operations. Under the expanded deal, advisors, investment professionals, and support staff across Scotia Wealth Management will gain access to FactSet's research and intelligence platform in one place, covering investment research, market data, portfolio analysis, and watchlists. Todd Barnes, executive vice president for Canadian wealth management investment advisory at Scotia Wealth Management, said the firm is adding the tools as it updates its advisor platform, while FactSet chief revenue officer Goran Skoko said the expansion extends a partnership built around the software advisors use day to day. The move follows FactSet's report eight days earlier of calendar third-quarter 2026 revenue growth of 6.3%, with GAAP revenues of $634.7 million for the period ended August 31, 2026, and organic revenues up 7.1%. FactSet also issued fiscal 2027 targets, projecting organic Annual Subscription Value growth of 5.0% to 6.5%, revenue of $2,600 million to $2,625 million, an adjusted operating margin of 34.75% to 35.25%, and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $19.25 to $19.65.

Lundin Gold Inc. reported third quarter 2026 gold production of 153,736 ounces from its Fruta del Norte mine in southeast Ecuador, the highest quarterly output since commercial production began at the site. Of that total, 103,311 ounces were produced as concentrate and 50,425 ounces as doré, compared with 122,086 ounces in the same quarter of 2025. The mill processed 535,711 tonnes of ore in the quarter at an average throughput of 5,823 tonnes per day, an average grade of 10.1 grams per tonne and recoveries of 88.3 percent. For the first nine months of 2026, the mill processed 1,532,652 tonnes and produced 392,472 ounces of gold. President and CEO Jamie Beck said the company is well positioned to deliver full-year production within its 2026 guidance range of 475,000 to 525,000 ounces, adding that year-to-date sales trailed production due to timing and that most of those ounces are expected to be sold in the fourth quarter. Lundin Gold will publish its third quarter 2026 results on November 4, 2026, after market close in North America, and will host a conference call and webcast on November 5.

General Fusion surged 13% in Thursday's trading after announcing a world-first result on its path to commercial fusion power. The company said its large-scale demonstration machine heated plasma to more than 12M degrees Celsius, or more than one kiloelectron unit, using its Magnetized Target Fusion low-speed compression approach. General Fusion said the result is the first of three milestones on its path to commercialization, with the next two hurdles consisting of heating electrons to 10 kiloelectron volts, followed by reaching net fusion energy within the superheated plasma. The company said the result marks a major step forward on its plan to deliver reliable baseload, economical clean power from fusion energy, and it is targeting the start of operations at a commercial fusion plant by around 2035.

Elevra Lithium rose 5.5% in Thursday's trading after signing a binding contract to supply spodumene concentrate to South Korea's LG Energy Solution from its North American Lithium project in Quebec. Under the deal, Elevra will deliver 240K dry metric tons of spodumene concentrate over three years, with shipments expected to begin in 2026. In addition to that contracted base quantity, the company said it may supply up to 90K dmt of optional volume over the same three-year term, subject to agreement between both parties. The deal comes as LG Energy looks to bolster its North American supply chain and meet growing demand for energy storage systems in the region. CEO Lucas Dow said securing a leading global battery manufacturer as a customer further strengthens the commercial position of NAL and supports the company's strategy of building a diversified portfolio of high-quality customers as it increases production.

General Fusion Group Ltd. said its Lawson Machine 26 demonstration machine has become the first fusion machine in the world to heat plasma to more than 12 million degrees Celsius, or more than 1 keV, using practical low-speed compression. The company said only a few fusion companies have ever reached 1 keV, all using other approaches, and that its Magnetized Target Fusion technology squeezes plasma with a metal wall over milliseconds rather than with superconducting magnets or high-powered lasers. Thomson scattering measured with the UK Atomic Energy Authority recorded approximately 1.1 keV just prior to peak compression, while absolute extreme ultraviolet data recorded approximately 1.2 keV at peak compression, and ions heated up to twofold above starting ion temperature. The result achieves the first of three key technical milestones for LM26, with machine upgrades underway to reach the second target of 10 keV, roughly 100 million degrees Celsius, followed by the Lawson criterion targeted by the end of 2028 and a first-of-a-kind plant around 2035. Chief Executive Officer Greg Twinney said the team squeezed a plasma shaped like a cored apple and it stayed alive while being squeezed and heated to more than 12 million degrees.

Suncor Energy agreed to sell key east coast offshore oil assets to Ithaca Energy, exiting production in that region. The divestiture shifts capital deployment toward Suncor's core oil sands projects, and management signalled a tighter focus on those operations. The company paired the asset sale with a stated plan to increase share buybacks as part of its capital return priorities. The deal trims Suncor's exposure to offshore fields including Terra Nova, White Rose and West White Rose, and the clearest early test will be how it deploys the roughly CA$1.55b upfront proceeds and any contingent payments over 2026 to 2028. Suncor Energy operates as an integrated oil and gas producer across Canada, the United States, and other regions, with a CA$113.5 billion market cap.

Emera has agreed to acquire Canadian Utilities in an all-share merger of equals, turning the steady Alberta-based utility into the center of a planned Canadian energy heavyweight. Canadian Utilities now trades at CA$49.85, with the share price easing over the past quarter even as the year-to-date share price return of 16.5% sits against a much stronger 1-year total shareholder return of 33.8% and a 3-year total shareholder return above 90%. The stock carries a price-to-sales multiple of 3.6x against CA$3,761.0m in revenue, well above the estimated fair P/S ratio of 2.7x, the 1.6x for the global integrated utilities industry and 1.7x for its immediate peer group, while a CA$538.0m non-recurring loss left net margins at 1.2% versus 12% a year earlier. A discounted cash flow model flags the shares as trading 64.1% below an estimated future cash flow value of CA$139, and the dividend yield of 3.71% is not fully backed by current profits, though forecasts call for 42.1% annual earnings growth and 4.3% revenue growth. Sentiment could shift quickly if the Emera merger timetable slips or regulators attach conditions that weaken the appeal of the all-share tie-up.

Kinross Gold has reset expectations after updating its production guidance for the third quarter of 2026 and for full-year 2026 and 2027, with the new outlook pointing to 2026 and 2027 volumes running 2% to 3% below the low end of prior targets, mostly at La Coipa and Round Mountain. The company's shares trade at CA$33.88, well below both analyst targets and an intrinsic value estimate, after a 1 month share price return of down 20.64% and a year to date share price return of down 12.77%. The most followed narrative pegs Kinross Gold's fair value at CA$51.32, implying the stock is 34% undervalued, a view built on projecting revenue at a 3.08% annual growth rate, applying a 37.14% profit margin, discounting cash flows back at 7.95% and using a future P/E of 14.92x on 2029 earnings, with analysts also building in modest share count reduction of about 1.73% a year for the next three years. Larger sites like Paracatu and Tasiast continue to perform in line with expectations, but the bullish case could unravel if operating costs at key mines keep rising or if permitting setbacks drag out projects like Lobo Marte.

Canada's Weston family has agreed to buy the UK's Boots Group from private equity firm Sycamore Partners for $8.9 billion, including debt. Under the agreement, Wittington Investments, the Weston family's Canada-based holding company, will acquire Boots' retail operations in the UK and Ireland, along with Boots Opticians, No7 Beauty Company, and its Thailand and franchised businesses. Sycamore, which took control of Boots last year through a $23.7 billion purchase of Walgreens Boots, will retain ownership of the Boots Group's other interests in Farmacias Benavides and Alliance Healthcare Deutschland in partnership with Stefano Pessina and his family. Toronto-based holding company Fairfax Financial is partnering with Wittington on the acquisition, with Wittington holding operational control upon close, and the deal is expected to close in Q1 of 2027. Wittington Investments owns the Canadian grocery chain Loblaws and pharmacy chain Shoppers Drug Mart.

Morgan Stanley upgraded Nexa Resources to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $14.20 price target, raised from $13.50, sending the zinc miner and smelter's shares up 2.1% in Wednesday's trading. Analyst Carlos De Alba said the stock's recent pullback, despite zinc and copper prices rising 5% and 8% respectively over the past three months, has created an attractive entry point, though the slide suggests the market lacks confidence in the sustainability of high zinc prices. Morgan Stanley's commodity team forecasts another 13% upside to spot prices in Q1 2027 and 5% in 2027. Nexa trades at 1.5x 2027 EV/EBITDA and 2.9x price-to-earnings, below their respective five-year averages of 3.8x and 7.3x, while offering a 42% 2027 free cash flow yield. De Alba added that Boliden's tender offer for minority shareholders provides scope for potential additional upside if the company pays a premium to secure full ownership, believing Boliden has the strategic rationale and financial capacity to do so and capture the full synergies from the deal.

Raytheon, an RTX business, has secured a five-year contract with two additional option years valued at up to $24.4 billion for Standard Missile-6 interceptors for the U.S. Navy. The U.S. FDA approved an additional indication for Eli Lilly's Jaypirca, or pirtobrutinib, allowing its use as a first-line treatment for adult patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia or small lymphocytic lymphoma without a known 17p deletion, based on the BRUIN CLL-313 trial where progression-free survival was significantly improved with a hazard ratio of 0.20 and a p value below 0.0001. SAP SE agreed to acquire TechWolf, an AI work intelligence platform provider, in a deal expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026 subject to regulatory approval, with terms not disclosed. Hagens Berman is investigating potential securities law violations by IBM after CEO Arvind Krishna previewed disappointing second-quarter 2026 results on July 14, 2026, sending IBM shares down 25% in one day and erasing over $68 billion in market capitalization. Canadian National Railway set a new quarterly record for grain movement, moving 7.94 million metric tonnes of grain from Western Canada in its third quarter, surpassing the previous record of 7.48 million metric tonnes set in 2020.

Xanadu Quantum Technologies has entered a multi-year manufacturing agreement with GlobalFoundries to produce photonic quantum components. The partnership moves Xanadu designs for fault-tolerant photonic qubits onto GlobalFoundries high volume semiconductor fabrication lines, with GlobalFoundries manufacturing integrated photonic chips intended to support Xanadu quantum computing systems beyond lab scale prototypes. The arrangement shifts Xanadu's SNSPDs and its ultra low loss SiN platform onto a 300 mm line, tying its roadmap to industrial processes that can support a quantum data centre model. The key marker now is whether Xanadu converts the deal into working fault tolerant demonstrator systems on GlobalFoundries made chips, with updates on timing and performance relative to the 2029 to 2030 data centre goal central from here. Investors still face a business that is currently unprofitable, has seen significant insider selling over the past 3 months, and where earnings are forecast to decline 20.1% per year over the next 3 years.

UniFirst and Cintas disclosed that they certified with the Federal Trade Commission on Friday that each had substantially complied with the regulator's second request. The two uniform retailers entered into a timing agreement with the FTC under which they agreed not to consummate the deal before Dec. 11 unless they receive written notice from the FTC before that date that it has closed its investigation, according to an 8-K filing on Tuesday. The parties also disclosed on July 2 that they received a Supplementary Information Request from the Canadian Competition Bureau in connection with that agency's review of the deal, and on Sept. 29 they certified to the regulator that they had completed their response to the SIR. Cintas continues to expect its $5.5 billion purchase of UniFirst to be completed by the end of the year. Cintas agreed in March to acquire smaller rival UniFirst for $310 per share in cash and stock, representing an enterprise value of about $5.5B.

Shares of IREN Ltd fell over 6% in Wednesday trading after research firm SemiAnalysis published a series of critical posts on X reporting severe user complaints about infrastructure quality at the Bitcoin miner-turned-neocloud's data center facilities. According to SemiAnalysis, multiple neocloud customers and end users described Iren's legacy operational sites in Prince George and Mackenzie, British Columbia, as the "worst in the industry," citing multi-day power outages, network upgrade disruptions, storage failures, and air-quality control problems that triggered frequent link flaps and system errors. SemiAnalysis said its own internal testing of Iren GPU capacity, sourced directly and through third-party resellers, confirmed widespread technical shortcomings at those initial locations, though it acknowledged that newer builds in Childress and Sweetwater, Texas, represent a significant operational upgrade with far superior design standards. The firm noted that Iren's massive $2.1 billion investment from Nvidia should help ensure the company avoids cutting technical corners on future site buildouts, but it called on Iren to revise its public investor disclosures and stop claiming it provides fully managed cloud clusters, pointing to the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and contrasting comments from Iren's Chief Commercial Officer, who acknowledged the firm currently has no live managed cloud services. SemiAnalysis currently places Iren in the "Not Recommended / Underperforming" tier of its ClusterMAX rankings, well behind neocloud peers CoreWeave Inc and Nebius Group NV, which hold top-tier Platinum ratings.

First Phosphate Corp. is advancing an integrated mine-to-battery strategy in Quebec's Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region, with feasibility studies for the planned phosphate mine, phosphoric acid plant and conductive material plant expected by the end of 2026 or early 2027. Director of Business Development Alexis de la Renaudi said the company demonstrated what he described as the first LFP battery made in North America using North American technology and critical minerals, incorporating First Phosphate's phosphate and iron alongside lithium carbonate and graphite, during a visit to Ultion Technologies in Utah earlier this year. The project sits approximately 70 kilometres from the deep-sea Port of Saguenay, giving access to both North American and international markets, and de la Renaudi cited existing infrastructure and a skilled local workforce as advantages. On the financing side, he pointed to an agreement involving Denmark's Export and Investment Fund, EIFO, for 170 million euros, and more recent interest from Switzerland's SERV for 212 million euros in connection with future project development. The company continues to position its Quebec strategy around building a domestic and North American supply chain for LFP batteries, from phosphate production through to battery materials.

Cenovus Energy is deepening its Canadian oil sands footprint through its November 2025 MEG Energy acquisition and a newly announced deal to acquire Athabasca Oil Corporation. Management said the Christina Lake North assets, formerly MEG's Christina Lake, are the biggest contributor to upstream production and have already moved above their rated capacity of 110,000 barrels per day. Cenovus is investing approximately $400 million in growth capital to expand Christina Lake North through new steam generators, facility debottlenecking and redevelopment drilling, which is expected to add nearly 40,000 barrels per day of production by 2028. The Athabasca transaction, expected to close in December, is anticipated to add 45 Mboe per day of production, including thermal production near Christina Lake North, extending the company's long-term growth runway. In the second quarter, Cenovus achieved total upstream production of 970 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Novartis will present 46 abstracts from its multiple sclerosis portfolio at MSToronto2026, the 10th Joint ACTRIMS-ECTRIMS Meeting, including a late-breaking abstract featuring positive Phase III REMODEL-1/-2 results for remibrutinib, an oral BTK inhibitor, in relapsing multiple sclerosis. A second late-breaking abstract will present new Kesimpta, or ofatumumab, data in pediatric MS, where approved treatment options remain limited. Additional Kesimpta presentations will cover final efficacy, safety and tolerability, and healthcare resource utilization results from the Phase 3b STHENOS study in treatment-naive relapsing MS patients, interim breastmilk excretion results from the Phase 4 KATHAROS study, and pregnancy and infant outcomes from the PRIM study. Following the REMODEL data presentation, Novartis will host a conference call for investors to provide updates on the data and the potential for remibrutinib in MS. The REMODEL-1/-2 results will be presented orally on October 23, and the NEOS pediatric study results will be presented earlier the same morning.