Thanos Thanos:
^100% wrong
1) imagine the economic diversity we could have built in this province over the last forty years if $15 to 20 billion per year weren't being taken from us and given to those who despise us.
That money was still paid out in federal taxes. Ottawa would probably have found something else to do with it.
I saw comments on the Calgary Herald's website that Encana has been moving in this direction since 2013.
Here's what an interesting article in the Financial Post had to say:$1:
For Encana, the move is a logical shift since Doug Suttles, a Texan, took over as chief executive officer in 2013. Suttles soon set about selling Canadian assets and building a major position in the U.S. through the purchase of Permian driller Athlon Energy and the acquisition of Freeport-McMoRan Inc.’s Eagle Ford shale assets. The company moved into the Scoop and Stack shale fields in Oklahoma, the Bakken region of North Dakota and the Uinta play in Utah with its purchase of Newfield Exploration, which closed in February.
...
Encana’s “exciting and engaging” new name isn’t meant to denigrate Canada or its policies and politics, he added, and that the recent federal election, in which the pro-energy Conservative Party failed to unseat Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, wasn’t a factor in the move.
“We don’t want people to see this as some negative reflection on Canada,” Suttles said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg television.
Those are the words and actions of the guy who's been running Encana since 2013, back when Alberta conservatives were in power both federally and provincially. The move started when we had the pro-O&G Stephen Harper in the driver's seat, and the CEO outright said this didn't have anything to do with the recent federal election.
He might be lying about all this, but I'm puzzled as to why he would.
And then
there's this other Financial Post article, which implies that Encana's had bigger problems than Canadian politics.
$1:
Encana president and CEO Doug Suttles said on an earnings call Thursday that plans to move the iconic company’s headquarters from Calgary to the U.S. were motivated in part by its underperformance to its U.S.-based peers.
“We intend to establish a U.S. domiciled company that will expose us to significantly larger and growing pools of investment,” Suttles said during the earnings call. “By looking at prior data, this will expose our company to almost three times the amount of index participation we see today as a Canadian company.”
...
But shares of Encana, which — subject to shareholder approval — will be renamed Ovintiv Inc. when it moves its headquarters from Calgary to a U.S. location, have also underperformed Canadian peers, compelling many analysts to warn that the company’s relocation will not necessarily improve its performance.
“This is not the fix you are looking for,” Raymond James analyst Chris Cox wrote in a research note Friday, adding, “companies that are successfully executing strategically and conveying a compelling message to the Street typically don’t go through a rebranding effort.”
Encana shares fell 6 per cent Thursday after the relocation and rebranding effort was announced, but were trading up 0.7 per cent to $5.20 per share Friday. Cox said he didn’t believe the sell-off was overdone.
“We believe the reaction reflects an investor base that is fatigued and frustrated that this (relocation) is garnering the attention of management, as opposed to more impactful solutions to reverse the disappointing share price performance since the company announced the merger with Newfield,” Cox wrote.
CIBC World Markets analyst Jon Morrison said in a note that he is “perplexed as to the path Encana is taking” because he doesn’t believe “the fact that Encana has been a Canadian-headquartered entity has led to any material share price underperformance.”
...
The company’s recent underperformance dates back to its announcement of a US$7.7-billion deal with Newfield Exploration in November 2018, which brought the company into a challenging play in Oklahoma.
Encana stock is down 33.38 per cent year to date, compared to S&P/TSX Capped Energy Index’s nearly 11 per cent drop during the period.
Indeed, many analysts and fund managers were highly critical of the Newfield deal, as it signalled a change in focus for the company away from what used to be called its “core four” resource plays in Alberta and Texas.
“They didn’t appreciate the level of hatred for that play,” Ninepoint Partners senior portfolio manager and partner Eric Nuttall said of the deal, calling it “their worst move.”
...
Analysts also criticized a handful of the company’s other acquisitions, including a major deal struck as oil prices were tumbling.
“What put Encana on their knees was that huge deal in 2014,” Canoe Financial senior portfolio manager and director Rafi Tahmazian said, referring to the company’s pivot towards a focus on oil by buying Athlon Energy for $7.1 billion in Sept. 2014.
The deal was struck just as global oil prices were collapsing from above US$100 per barrel to the US$30 per barrel range. Since that time, global oil prices have struggled to rise above US$65 per barrel.
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