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Bay Street bigwigs, including Mark Mobius and David Bissett, share the secrets of finance

(Image: Duckie Monster)

Finance types aren’t known for their reticence (the fast-talking Gordon Gecko stereotype exists for a reason), but still, the Bay Streeters interviewed in the latest issue of Report on Business were even more candid than we would have expected. Mark Mobius, David Dreman, Veronika Hirsch and seven other finance gurus gave specific advice about what to invest in right now (emerging markets, index funds and high-yielding dividend stocks, respectively), before delving into their triumphs, their failures and their concerns over global markets. Asked what keeps him awake at night, David Bissett responded, “That investors are going to realize that the U.S. emperor has no clothes. The shit is going to hit the fan there sooner or later, unless they can get their act together—and I don’t think they can.” Timothy Geithner and friends, take note. Read the entire story [Globe and Mail] »

The Informer

Gimme Shelter

December 7, 2011 | 12:55 pm

25 Comments

House of the Week: $5.5 million for Canada AM co-host Valerie Pringle’s Casa Loma mansion

ADDRESS: 3 Clarendon Crescent

NEIGHBOURHOOD: Casa Loma

AGENT: Leanne Weld, Royal LePage J&D Division, Brokerage

PRICE: $5,495,000

THE PLACE: Built in 1906, this brick and stone house sits on a double lot on a private road with only six other residences. It’s even a listed heritage property (but don’t worry, the interior isn’t ancient—the home underwent extensive renovations in 1996).

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The Informer

From the Print Edition

November 9, 2011 | 8:45 am

15 Comments

The Loaded List: we catalogue the astronomical salaries of Toronto’s ruling class

The Loaded List
It’s not particularly polite to ask rich people what they earn. But tact is overrated, and we wanted to know, so we asked anyway. When they told us to get lost, we got sneaky. We dug up disclosure documents, annual reports and the tax filings of charitable organizations. When those trails went dry, we surveyed industry insiders who know what other people make—headhunters and consultants and analysts and colleagues—and asked for an educated guess. After hundreds of calls and emails and deep-throat meetings in dark alleys, we phoned the high earners back and told them what we found. Again, with feeling, they told us to piss off.

What follows is our shamelessly gawking, as-precise-as-possible examination of the highest-paid people in the city’s top industries. When the information was available, we included bonuses and perks and, in some cases, exercised stock options. Our findings verified that a high earner in finance is almost always on a different plane (a private jet, usually) than a high earner in, for example, the lowly arts. One major discovery: Heather Reisman took a pay cut. One truth reconfirmed: no matter how rich you are, there’s always someone who makes a helluva lot more.

CLICK HERE TO START THE STORY »

VIEW BY INDUSTRY » GOLD ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT FUND MANAGERS SPORTS SHOP OWNERS MEDIA LANDLORDS BAY STREET PUBLIC SERVANTS

VIEW BY SALARY » SEE 69 OF THE RICHEST PEOPLE IN THE CITY’S TOP INDUSTRIES, SORTED BY SALARY FROM HIGHEST TO LOWEST

The Dish

Restauran-TO

November 8, 2011 | 4:36 pm

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Prairie Girl to open second Financial District cupcake shop (UPDATED)

Test batches of Prairie Girl’s banana split (rear) and raspberry cream cheese early birds (Image: Karen Lipsey-Savage)

Less than a year after opening up shop on Victoria Street, Jean Blacklock, the Bay Street escapee behind Prairie Girl Bakery, has announced plans for a second location of her popular cupcake shop. The new store will open on November 14 in in the Marketplace at the concourse level of First Canadian Place. As at the original location, the cupcakes will all be baked on site, albeit in a tiny 450-square-foot space. The expansion couldn’t come soon enough: with the weather getting colder, downtown’s cupcake heads will appreciate the lineups moving indoors.

UPDATE: Blacklock tells us the First Canadian Place location will also be stocking “Early Birds,” little old-fashioned cakes with toppings that, as she puts it, “may be more appealing in the morning than a swirl of butter icing.” The menu of 11 flavours of early birds—like raspberry cream cheese with a coffee base or banana split with with dried cherries, nuts and chocolate—will be available until 10 a.m. If things go well at the new location, expect a couple more Prairie Girl outlets to open next year.

The Dish

From the Print Edition

November 3, 2011 | 4:20 pm

2 Comments

Toronto’s best five restaurants to go for a business lunch

The top five spots to break bread, dent the expense account and sign a deal while you’re at it

Best for a Business Lunch

A $1 million facelift loosened the tie of Oliver and Bonacini’s flagship Canoe, while the breathtaking view from the 54th floor never fails to awe. It tops our chart for the expertly executed haute Canadiana and service that’s as polished as the silver. 66 Wellington St. W., 416-364-0054.

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The Informer

My Name Is Lucre

November 1, 2011 | 11:45 am

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TMX board backs Maple Group takeover bid after four months of negotiations

The TMX board has come around to the once-hostile $3.8-million takeover bid by Maple Group, a consortium of 13 Canadian banks, insurers and pension funds. The new follows the death of a possible merger between the Toronto and London stock exchanges this past summer, news many one-percenters on Bay Street greeted with glee (for more on the TSX-LSE merger, read Tony Keller’s piece in the June issue of Toronto Life). Regarding the Maple offer, TMX board members were originally worried about “debt, competition, and regulatory concerns”—but apparently that’s ancient history after four months of negotiations. Now all the group needs is regulatory approval—the main concern being that the merger could create a monopoly that would crush smaller traders. But, really, when have enormous financial institutions been bad for anyone? Read the entire story [CTV] »

The Informer

The New Normal

October 17, 2011 | 12:15 pm

1 Comment

Reaction roundup: local media have a difficult time saying anything interesting about Occupy Toronto

Protesters at Occupy Toronto (Image: Luciano Castillo)

The Occupy Everywhere movement spread to Canada on Saturday, with protesters setting up camp in St. James Park in Toronto, among other spots across the country. So far the protests have been entirely peaceful—unlike the displays witnessed during the G20, which some feared might be repeated. But without that kind of journalistic low-hanging fruit, the local media have focused most of their attention on how Occupy Toronto lacks cohesion or a singular message. We round up who’s saying what, after the jump.

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The Informer

From the Print Edition

October 11, 2011 | 12:30 pm

1 Comment

The Q & A: former Bay Streeter Andrew Galloway sympathizes with the crack addicts he counsels on Intervention Canada—because he used to be one

Andrew Galloway

By Malcolm Johnston | Photograph by Daniel Ehrenworth

Now you’re a successful rehab therapist, but 10 years ago, you were working on Bay Street, hooked on booze and crack. How bad did things get?
I had a few seizures. I would collapse to my knees and crawl to my couch. Finally, I drove over to my parents’ place. My mom opened the door and I burst into tears. She asked, “Who died?” and I looked at her and said, “Me.”

Do you think they suspected all along?
They never knew the extent of it, but they knew something was wrong. I remember one year having a bunch of great ideas for what to get them for Christmas. Then all of a sudden it was Christmas Eve, and I hadn’t gotten them anything. So I cut out pictures from magazines and gave them as IOUs. I wanted to get my dad a putter, but I couldn’t even find a picture of a putter. God. I can still see the pencil drawing I made. You want to talk about shame? But you know what? Now I get my Christmas shopping done in October!

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The Informer

City Sindex

October 4, 2011 | 4:05 pm

4 Comments

Look out, greedy corporate types—New York’s Occupy Wall Street movement is coming to the Big Smoke to protest you

Word is protesters are planning to camp out on Bay Street in the coming weeks. But because Occupy Toronto organizers didn’t comment to the Toronto Sun and Facebook likes aren’t a reliable indication of interest, it’s still unclear how many protesters will actually show up at the Toronto event. Regardless, rest assured—Bill Blair says he has this one covered. The police chief told the Sun he hopes the police will “be able to manage it safely and with minimum disruption to the city.” Who knows, if the protests get anywhere near the size of New York’s, perhaps this could be Blair’s chance for a do-over? Read the entire story [Toronto Sun] »

The Dish

Opening

August 29, 2011 | 4:35 pm

14 Comments

Introducing: Bannock, Oliver and Bonacini’s new café and restaurant at The Bay’s flagship store

Inside Bannock, the new collaboration between Oliver and Bonacini and HBC (Image: Renée Suen)

It’s no secret that Hudson’s Bay Co. has undergone some big changes in recent years. The retailer’s revitalization project at its Queen Street flagship store, in partnership with Compass Group Canada and Oliver and Bonacini, is the first move toward a national conversion of its food services. To that end, it’s opened up two new restaurants aimed at attracting an increasingly food-conscious public: Foodwares Market, a modern food hall on the lower level, and Bannock, a new restaurant and café at the corner of Queen and Bay.

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The Informer

The New Normal

August 18, 2011 | 11:30 am

2 Comments

Toronto developer announces it will use non-exploding glass on its condos

Er, wait, this was an option all along? After a spate of incidents involving falling glass showering the streets beneath downtown condos, Lanterra Developments (the company behind the Murano towers, from which a pane of glass fell 31 storeys and injured a passerby near Bay Street on Monday) says it will now use laminated glass instead of tempered glass on its outside features. The key difference is that laminated glass is covered in plastic, which means that if a pane shatters it won’t send shards hurtling toward the ground. We’re happy to hear that Lanterra is moving in this direction, and we hope other developers do too. Of course, we wish they had ponied up the extra dollars earlier, instead of waiting until the ninth episode of exploding glass to change things up. Read the entire story [Star] »

The Dish

Restauran-TO

July 25, 2011 | 10:50 am

3 Comments

Four workers at Ki, the Bay Street sushi standby, come down with the mumps

Infection by the mumps virus can be prevented with a common vaccine (Image: Centers for Disease Control/Dr. F. A. Murphy)

Ki, best known as the go-to sushi joint for suits in the Financial District, became famous this weekend for something only slightly less unsettling than poorly prepared fugu: the mumps. Toronto Public Health warns that four employees at the Bay Street eatery had been diagnosed with mumps, which presents with symptoms like swelling and pain in the salivary glands, fever, headache, fatigue and a loss of appetite. Anyone who dined there between July 7 and July 18 is advised to watch for such symptoms. Despite this, the restaurant is expected to be open for business today.

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The Hype

From the Print Edition

July 19, 2011 | 8:45 am

25 Comments

How the music now ruling the rap charts became so decidedly middle-class

By Anupa Mistry

(Image: Gluekit; D-Sisive by Melanie Moore; Shad by Christine Lim; Drake by Christian Lapid/CP Images; Airplane Boys by Justin Create)

At 3:46 a.m. on December 12, 2010, a post titled “Introducing The Weeknd” appeared on the blog of Toronto’s most famous rapper, Drake. Two songs—“What You Need” and “The Morning”—revealed a new R&B singer to the world and kick-started a rabid following. The Weeknd’s free nine-song release House of Balloons garnered 200,000 downloads in its first three weeks, and his videos have been watched on YouTube hundreds of thousands of times. It’s been a rapid rise, like that of his mentor, Drake, whose 2010 full-length debut Thank Me Later went platinum in the U.S. just over a month after its release. This is Toronto’s hip-hop moment, and the city’s steadfast identity as safe, stable and middle-class—once the basis of its lack of rap credibility—is the reason.

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The Dish

Weekly Lunch Pick

July 11, 2011 | 8:34 am

1 Comment

Summerlicious Lunch Pick: Bymark’s B.C. halibut

Bymark’s B.C. halibut in a banana leaf, a main course on the restaurant’s regular menu, appears on its Summerlicious menu as well. (Image: Renée Suen)

Summerlicious officially launched last Friday (see our complete guide), and instead of serving a second-string menu, many restaurants, like Mark McEwan’s Bay Street standby Bymark, are offering plates from their regular roster at discounted prices.

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The Hype

From the Print Edition

July 7, 2011 | 2:00 pm

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Do-gooders cavort to conga beats—with K’Naan—at the Hope Rising after-party

Alicia Keys, Ngozi Paul and K'naan (Image: George Pimentel)

May 3, Rosewater Supper Club. After-hours at the Rosewater usually means loose-tied Bay Street types swirling grand cru and planning their next hostile takeover—not the conga-beating, boogying and boisterous boozing that broke out at the after-party for the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s Hope Rising concert. Supporters poured into the decadent downtown resto following a fundraising show at the Sony Centre, which featured Alicia Keys, Rufus Wainwright, K’naan and Jully Black. The party peaked when a corps of conga drummers started playing along to the backbeat of the DJ set, enticing even the suits to shake a tail feather. Up on the mezzanine, K’naan was too preoccupied with fending off a throng of female fans to hit the dance floor. At the concert he’d brought fans onstage to sing his anthem “Wavin’ Flag”; mercifully, no sloppy renditions were attempted in his honour at the after-party.

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