Canadian business and foreign acquisition

February 27, 2008
(Globe & Mail) Corporate Canada easy prey for foreign buyers
JANET MCFARLAND
Canada’s takeover-friendly securities laws have helped make the country the easiest in the world for foreign acquirers, according to a groundbreaking new study that shows Canadians are the world’s biggest net sellers of corporate assets in terms of the nation’s market size.
An 86-page report, prepared by Secor Consulting for the federally-appointed Competition Policy Review Panel, concludes Canada is the easiest country in the world for foreigners to take over domestic companies.
The review, a copy of which was obtained by The Globe and Mail, says only three countries that were active in global mergers and acquisitions since 2000 were significant net sellers of their companies: Canada, the United States and Britain.
And relative to the size of its domestic capital market, Canada is the biggest of the three, with the value of completed acquisitions since 2000 equalling 12 per cent of the country’s total stock market capitalization, compared with 10.7 per cent in Britain and 2.1 per cent in the United States.