Big Oil Merger, Sales Taxes and Weekend Reading

Posted on March 27th, 2009 by MillionDollarMan

Merger News

Suncor (SU) is about to potentially merge with Petro Canada (PCA) in an all stock exchange to become the largest energy company in Canada. Should the deal meet Canadian government approval, both companies will trade under the symbol SU. Existing PCA owners will receive 1.28 shares of SU for every share of PCA that they own.

Question for you, what are your thoughts on selling a company that is about to merge with another? I’ve been thinking about selling my PCA shares ever since the big news.

Disclosure: I hold both SU and PCA.

Sales Tax Going up in Ontario!

It seems that Ontario may be going the way of harmonized sales tax (like Atlantic Canada). The Ontario government may say that it’s for the business owners, but in the end, it’s the consumer who will be paying more taxes. When they harmonized sales tax here in NL, everything went up in price. Gasoline, baby clothes, new houses, real estate/lawyer fees and insurance all got more expensive.

This new change in the taxation system may affect other Canadians as well as there are quite a few mutual fund companies based out of Ontario. This may result in mutual funds increasing their MERs.

You can read more about this on Canadian Capitalist.