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In Montreal, the journalist Louis-Philippe Messier is mainly on the run, with his office in his backpack, looking for fascinating topics and people. He speaks to everyone and is interested in all areas of life in this city chronicle.

Ten years after BIXI arrived in Montreal, this summer the city of Quebec has more fully implemented its own self-service bike system, adapted to its many extremely steep streets. And I prefer…

The one from Quebec! It’s not called BIXI, but àVélo. These gears aren’t gunmetal gray or pale blue, they’re black.

Montrealers on a trip to Quebec won’t be disoriented by this model, which is fairly closely modeled after the Metropolis, as these frames are also E-Fit and made by Cycles Devinci.

The main difference between the two services?

There are only e-bikes in Québec… otherwise they’ll all end up in the lower town!

Photo Louis Philippe Messier

àVélo’s bike-sharing system is similar to that of BIXI.

Who would have the courage and strength to defy gravity by climbing a 45 degree slope on a “heavy” mechanical bike like a BIXI?

Even in Montreal, a city with relatively flat terrain, mechanical BIXIs have the unfortunate tendency to sink far more often than they rise.

Easier

After a short test phase with ten stations and a hundred mounts last summer, àVélo took the nation’s capital by storm this summer with 40 stations and 400 bikes.

Already in touristic Quebec we see them circulating everywhere.

“Next year there will be 70 stations and 700 bicycles, then 100 stations and 1,000 bicycles in 2024,” explains Brigitte Lemay from the Capital Transport Network.

Seeing two smiling seniors effortlessly pedaling uphill on àVélo, I felt a burst of optimism for the future of this service.

Having walked a lot in Quebec, I know it’s not easy.

Photo Louis Philippe Messier

Catherine Bonneau recently signed up.

Therefore, even if àVélo will not catch up with the 600 BIXI stations so quickly, I predict relatively greater success due to the difficult climbs to be climbed on foot.

If it’s easier and faster to climb hills with a àVélo than on two feet, it’s guaranteed to be popular.

Check

In the rue Saint-Jean, I get on my àVélo at the end of the rue Claire-Fontaine, which seems to me to have an incline of about 40 degrees.

No momentum for this test. In first gear, with motor assistance, I climb the 50 meters without difficulty… even if I have to make a little effort towards the end.

It would have been more strenuous to climb it on foot.

At the top of the hill I question a passing “à Véloiste”.

“I subscribed to the program for a month because friends encouraged me and it’s really fun,” says Catherine Bonneau, director of the Les Gros Becs theatre.

“It becomes much more convenient when the network is larger. »

differences

Unlike BIXIs, àVélos are equipped with chains to lock them somewhere and a QR code for quick unlocking.

As in Montreal, workers are needed to change dead batteries.

Based on my experience, I wonder why the power of the àVélo assist motor isn’t even greater than it is now.

If even Quebec’s long, steep climbs will be easy for a clientele who isn’t necessarily in good shape, the battle is won.

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Investors who flocked to bonds offering protection against inflation are now dumping them in a bet that the Federal Reserve will be successful in quashing rising prices. Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) have seen outflows for five straight weeks, the longest streak since April 2020, according to Bank of America chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett, who wrote in a note that investors are “allowing inflation to dwindle.” . TIPS are government bonds indexed to inflation to protect investors from falling purchasing power. The capital value of TIPS increases as inflation rises. The securities met with huge demand as investors hedged against inflation, which had hit a 40-year high in mid-2022. The record selling came as investors welcomed two encouraging inflation reports this week that showed some progress in battling rising prices. US consumer prices rose 8.5% yoy in July, slower than June and lighter than expected. Wholesale prices also fell last month, the first drop in two years. “The fall in inflation that peaked a few months ago is now showing up in headline data in a meaningful way,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner of Harris Financial Group. “The Fed now has enough cover to reduce the pace and magnitude of future rate hikes. This is really good news and reduces the likelihood of stagflation and the need for a major recession to break the backbone of embedded inflation.” The largest exchange-traded fund that tracks TIPS – the iShares TIPS Bond ETF – is this year in the face of tightening efforts Federal Reserve fell by more than 10%. The central bank has aggressively raised interest rates and rolled back its massive bond-buying program, shrinking its balance sheet and driving up real yields. Wall Street has been watching the TIPS market closely as a decline in value could also indicate an improvement in the inflation outlook and that the Fed is doing its job of fighting price pressures. “The market seems to take solace in the fact that we appear to have peaked inflation and we should continue to see declines in the second half of the year,” said Brian Price, head of investment management at the Commonwealth Financial Network. “If energy prices continue to fall then I expect we will see inflation data in the coming months.”

Spend any amount of time in New York and you’ll feel it. Manhattan and Brooklyn are teeming with activity. It’s electrifying to be there after being relatively confined for years.

The question posed by the San Francisco Chronicle this week is why San Francisco isn’t recovering in the same way.

As reporter Roland Li writes, “There has always been a disconnect — New York has ten times the population of San Francisco — but coastal tourism and economic hubs have diverged in remarkable ways as they recovered from the pandemic.”

Consider, Li writes, that while construction of major commercial real estate projects in Manhattan has been completed during the pandemic — and while much of that new office space is almost fully leased — over in San Francisco, projects have stalled and existing buildings are struggling to find tenants due of work-from-home policies.

One way to fill these buildings is to convert them into apartments. Wall Street, Li observes, has been doing just that for decades. But while there’s clear demand for housing in New York, and rents are already soaring to record highs, in San Francisco it’s not so clear that enough people would — for now — rent converted office space even if it were made available.

Indeed, new telecommuting policies are clearly having a major impact on where people live, and many Bay Area workers who might be fleeing the area’s high prices have done so. (California — led by San Francisco and followed by Los Angeles — lost more than 352,000 residents between April 2020 and January 2022, according to California Treasury Department statistics.)

It might be time to consider whether these fully distributed plans still make sense. In his post, Li partially draws a line between the “staggering crowds” on the streets of New York and last April, when then-Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that city workers would soon be returning to the office, a move that quickly followed from private companies.

The story goes on

Called back by employers, New Yorkers who had left during the pandemic suddenly found themselves looking for new housing, if only to spend just two or three days in the office.

The gambit seems to continue to work. The Partnership for New York City, which says it surveyed more than 160 employers over a two-week period between late April and early May, found that 38% of its Manhattan workers are back in the office on an average weekday, while 28% % are completely remote. Meanwhile, the average attendance is expected to increase to 49% over the next month.

This does not mean that the employees are full-time again. They may never be, considering even the most vocal critics of remote work have been forced to soften their stance, including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. As Bloomberg reported in May, Dimon told shareholders in an April letter that working from home “will become more permanent in American business,” and estimated that about 40% of its 270,000 employees would work on a hybrid model. Shortly after, a senior engineer at the bank told some teams that, based on internal feedback, they could spend two days in the office instead of three if they wanted.

Those two to three days a week could save New York, and it might be time more San Francisco employers, reluctant to make demands of their own employees, consider doing the same.

Small businesses in San Francisco are increasingly desperate for the economic activity that would bring office workers back; While civic duty may not be a priority for local tech companies, there’s still a strong argument that hybrid environments allow employees better work-life balance, more camaraderie with their peers, and even career advancement.

Many blame San Francisco’s inability to recover on a lack of affordable housing, and there’s no question that the city is self-sabotaging on that front. In San Francisco, “rather than clichéd rules where a developer knows, ‘I get to build this,’ everything is negotiable and every project is ad hoc,” says Jenny Schuetz, a housing economist at the Brookings Institution, told The Atlantic in May.

But abandoning plans to return to the office forever will not solve the problem. Meanwhile, two and a half years after the pandemic sent everyone home, and amid a slowing US economy that’s making it harder to change jobs (and newly relaxed CDC-COVID guidelines), it might be time for more outfits to embrace the Ask employees to come into the office two to three times a week and see what’s happening from there.

It is not the responsibility of employers to “fix” San Francisco. At the same time, if they wait too long, they may not have much left to go back to.

Each week we provide an overview of Insider Trading, Investing in Local Businesses and News from Public Companies.

CDPQ bets $96 million on CleverTap

Screenshot, CleverTap.com

Young American company CleverTap raised US$105 million (CA$134 million) in a financing round led by Caisse de depot et Placement du Québec, which also included Indian firm IIFL AMC and American funds Tiger Global and Sequoia. The Caisse has invested US$75 million (US$96 million) in CleverTap. Founded in 2013 in Mumbai but now based in California, the company offers a software as a service that uses artificial intelligence to drive customer engagement and loyalty. This is used by clients representing 1200 brands in 100 countries.

You buy Cascades

Four Cascades insiders have bought shares in Kingsey Falls over the past few days. Alain Lemaire, co-founder and former CEO of the recycled paper products maker, acquired it for almost $700,000, while the current big boss, Mario Plourde, invested a little over $120,000 in the company. For his part, head of supply chain and information Dominic Doré bought shares in Cascades for almost $100,000, while Hubert Lacroix, member of the board of directors, invested just over $90,000 in the company. Cascades stock is down more than 30% since early 2022.

Americans are getting their hands on robovers

Michigan firm ODL announced this week the acquisition of Robover, a Quebec company. Robover was founded by Pierre Tardif in 1999 and is now run by his daughter Anne. Robover manufactures insulating glass used in residential and commercial sectors. “We have made a bold decision to protect the future growth of our business by partnering with ODL, a leader in the glass industry in North America,” Ms. Tardif said in an English-only statement.

Anges Quebec invests in Elkimia

Montreal-based Elkimia has received a new investment from Anges Québec and AQC Capital, the value of which has not been quantified. Founded in 2004, Elkimia develops and markets algae-inspired protective products against ultraviolet rays. The company supplies the cosmetics, textile and coatings industries.

YouSet raises $2.1 million

Quebec startup YouSet has raised $2.1 million thanks to investors like Nicolas Bouchard (founder of DuProprio), Don Fox (former vice president of Financière Intact) and Michel Lozeau (CEO of Anges Québec). Founded in 2017 by Xavier Freeman and Fellipe Monteiro, YouSet is an online premium comparison service for property and casualty insurance.

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For months, federal authorities have been increasing pressure on Beijing and Chinese companies trading on US stock exchanges to comply with US listing rules.

But on Friday, five of China’s top US-listed state giants, worth a combined $318 billion, announced they would instead exit Wall Street, marking an acceleration of US-China financial decoupling.

State-owned insurer China Life Insurance, energy giants PetroChina and China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, and Aluminum Corporation of China and Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical announced on Friday that they would be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), as Washington and Beijing continue to do are pushing for American inspectors to inspect Chinese companies. The fight could result in hundreds of China-based companies being booted from US stock exchanges.

Just in case, Chinese companies are preparing to be thrown off Wall Street. “The state-owned companies see that the writing is on the wall for them,” Liqian Ren, director of modern alpha at investment firm WisdomTree Asset Management, told Fortune, noting that a larger shift is underway for other Chinese public companies could be. also resident companies.

business decisions

The US and China have been locked in a decades-long dispute over American inspectors being allowed to scrutinize US-listed Chinese companies. The US audit regulator wants full access to Chinese companies’ auditors and audit records, but China has refused, citing national security concerns. The US could delist over 260 Chinese companies worth $1.3 trillion by 2024 if Washington and Beijing fail to reach an agreement.

China’s securities regulator said in a statement Friday that “listings and delistings … are common in capital markets.” It added that the five state-owned companies followed US rules while listed on US stock exchanges and that their delisting decisions were made solely “due to business considerations”.

Other Chinese companies listed in the US could follow in the footsteps of the five state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The two remaining Chinese SOEs listed on US exchanges — two state-affiliated airlines — will “definitely consider” delisting from New York, Ren says. China’s state-owned companies all have information Beijing deems sensitive or vital to national security that American inspectors don’t want access to, meaning it wouldn’t be surprising if the remaining state-owned companies decide to go public soon to go, Brendan Brendan Ahern, chief investment officer at KraneShares, a China-focused mutual fund, told Fortune.

But this protection is not limited to state-owned companies. Other Chinese companies want to keep their US listings. But they will ultimately “review the situation and make a strategic decision,” Ren says. Most large companies will feel that a US listing is risky and will leave them caught in the crossfire between Chinese and US regulators, especially given the deteriorating China-US relationship, she says.

And non-state-affiliated companies have striven to mitigate those risks. On July 29, the US Securities and Exchange Commission placed Chinese tech giant Alibaba – which raised $25 billion in the largest US IPO in 2014 – on its delisting watch list. Alibaba announced that it is changing its Hong Kong listing from secondary to primary status, giving it an exit route in the event of a delisting — and one that will allow it to target mainland Chinese investors.

Stifled progress

In recent months, the SEC has continued to add Chinese companies to its now long list of companies facing delistings. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has reiterated that the US will accept nothing less than full compliance from China.

Beijing is reportedly looking to strike a deal with Washington that would separate US-listed Chinese firms based on the type of data they hold. China is seeking a compromise so that most non-state firms open their books to American inspectors but restrict scrutiny of state firms and technology companies that hold sensitive information, Adam Montanaro, investment director of global emerging markets equities at investment firm abrdn Fortune, said earlier this year.

While “China has incentives to improve its relationship with the US, [their ties] have been severely damaged in recent years. Confidence is very low, especially given the recent flare-up in Taiwan,” says Ren. At the same time, US regulators have made it very clear that they want full access and compliance. There will not be a two-tier entry system,” she says.

However, Ahern argues that the delistings of the five state-owned companies are a positive sign that Washington and Beijing may be moving closer to a delisting consensus. After all Chinese SOEs were swiped from Wall Street, the “remaining non-state-owned companies have long declared that they have nothing to hide,” Ahern says.

Still, the SEC’s delisting watch list has only grown — and the challenges facing US-listed Chinese companies have grown more difficult. The SEC has now banned 159 firms, including Alibaba’s e-commerce rival JD.com, social and blogging giant Weibo, KFC parent Yum China and biotechnology company BeiGene, from Wall Street for failing to comply . Washington “is clearly not going to budge an inch. There is no compromise. The Chinese side [must] make all concessions,” China-focused research firm Trivium wrote in an April statement.

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Air Canada gave four different reasons for a flight delay to two passengers returning to Montreal. This new testimony comes at a time when several travelers are noting difficulties with the airlines, which are receiving more and more complaints The newspaper.

• Also read: Delayed Flight: After the weather and safety, Air Canada talks about the workforce

• Also read: Air Canada delay: two reasons and two different compensations for the same flight

• Also read: Flight Cancellations: Air Canada provides yoga mats for sleeping on the floor

According to the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA), as of April, passengers had registered 1,115 complaints against airlines.

But with the resumption of air travel and the problems of several companies such as Air Canada, that number rose to 2,382 in May-June and exploded in July with 2,131 complaints.

Lots of testimonials

In fact, Le Journal has received several testimonials from travelers who have tried to get a refund but to no avail, like this couple, Guillaume and Sabrina, who have had great difficulty returning to the country.

After 21 days of motorcycle touring in the American West, the two travelers were scheduled to catch a flight from Las Vegas to Montreal, but it was delayed seven times.

Annoyed, the couple tried several times to find an Air Canada flight to return to Montreal to attend a wedding as soon as possible.

Find out !

“We were told to do it,” explains Guillaume in an interview with Le Journal.

According to text messages consulted by Le Journal, the company has changed its version several times to explain the delays: security problem, lack of staff, handling activities or problems with the pilot plan.

“Air Canada is laughing at the world! They asked for a refund but they gave me a $200 credit. I can’t even go to Trois-Rivières with that,” the young man introduced himself.

The latter has also decided to sue the airline for $3,200, which notably covers compensation in the event of a delay of nine hours or more.

In another story, again involving Air Canada, another passenger, Brigitte Lessard, had her flight to Varadero delayed by a day because of “a tropical storm.”

“But we spoke to people in Varadero and everything was beautiful. It rained, but it wasn’t a storm,” she says.

When Air Canada delayed its flight, Sunwing flew to Cuba that same day, 30 minutes late.

“We had to take a cab home, it was $100. Since then I’ve tried to get my money back, but I’ve only been given a loan,” she says.

Complaints also at the OPC

She filed a complaint with the Consumer Protection Agency (OPC). According to the organization, 35 complaints have been filed against Air Canada since April, compared to 15 for Transat.

“An air carrier entering into a contract must respect it and fulfill the commitments made. Otherwise, the consumer can claim not only a refund, but in some cases any damage that the situation causes them,” spokesman Charles Tanguay said in an email.

NUMBER OF COMPLAINTS TO CANADIAN TRANSPORTATION AGENCY (CTA) ABOUT FLIGHT CANCELLATIONS OR DELAYS

• February : 1196
• march : 1337
• April: 1115
• May and June (combined): 2382
• July : 2131

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In the days leading up to his 57th birthday on Friday, Kewsong Lee was getting restless. Months earlier, the now-former CEO of the Carlyle Group had proposed a $300 million salary package that would cement him as one of the most powerful figures in finance for the next half decade.

The Korean-American dealmaker played the role of Wall Street titan while privately harboring growing doubts. His bosses, the three seventy-year-old billionaire founders of Carlyle, hadn’t responded to the nine-figure wage move; Lee feels his situation is becoming untenable, close confidants said. He thought his days were numbered.

On Sunday, the trio — David Rubenstein, Bill Conway and Daniel D’Aniello — finally showed Lee the door, unwilling even to discuss his proposal. It threw one of the world’s largest private equity firms into chaos, wiping more than a billion dollars from its market value.

The messy exit revealed deep rifts within Carlyle, once dubbed the “Ex-President’s Club” — the firm had for years acted as a revolving door between the world’s political and financial elites, and previously counted George HW Bush and John Major as advisers.

But a firm that established its dominance three decades ago by forging political connections in the Washington, DC clubbing world has been overtaken by more aggressive New York rivals like Blackstone, KKR and Apollo – and seems uncertain, like them should adapt.

In almost any other company, a $300 million salary demand would seem both bold and deaf when ordinary workers are in trouble. But Lee’s was a stock-based deal that would reward him if he could restore Carlyle to its former glory. And his rewards were far less than competing firms.

Ultimately, Carlyle’s rejection was more about power than money. “He wanted complete autonomy,” said a person close to the situation. “The founders gave it to him. Then they took it away.”

Young Lee grew up in Schenectady, New York, an industrial town three hours north of Manhattan, where his father taught economics at a state university. His parents taught him to play the piano from the age of four; later he took up the violin.

As a teenager, he won a scholarship to Choate Rosemary Hall, the elite Connecticut boarding school where John F. Kennedy studied. At Harvard he met Zita Ezpeleta, his wife of three decades, with whom he has two children.

In his 20s, Lee joined private equity firm Warburg Pincus, considered by many to be the genteel statesman of the cutthroat buyout industry, where he oversaw many lucrative deals.

He made “a big mistake,” says a former colleague. He was the key figure behind Warburg Pincus’ costly decision in 2007 to invest in MBIA, an insurer hit hard by the subprime mortgage crisis.

As of 2013, Lee had not received a managerial role at Warburg. Conway, the architect of Carlyle’s private equity business, recruited him as a first lieutenant. It was a crucial moment. Carlyle was listed on public markets and needed to grow quickly.

Externally, the firm maintained an aura of power, reinforced by its proximity to Washington — its headquarters are a short walk from the White House, and Rubenstein had close ties to the Obama administration. Carlyle had bought interests in defense and aerospace companies during the Bush years, which were cast as villains in filmmaker Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11.

But internally things got chaotic. The founders, billionaires after Carlyle’s listing in 2012, moved in different directions and the firm made bad acquisitions and launched niche products that struggled to break even.

By 2017, Carlyle’s stock had fallen below its market price. Its founders entered philanthropy sideways. Lee and Glenn Youngkin, a well-loved 20-year veteran, have been named co-chief executives.

Seizing the opportunity, Lee handled Carlyle’s acquisitions and credit investments while Youngkin handled smaller operations. “He made a brilliant strategic decision on day one,” said a contemporary.

But the consolidation of his power made enemies of Lee. “He was constantly working towards becoming CEO and then ousting Youngkin,” says another former colleague. “He wanted to know if you were in this program.”

Still, he prevailed and became the sole chairman of the board when Youngkin — now Republican governor of Virginia — departed in 2020. But Lee still had a difficult task, sometimes managing the conflicting desires of co-founders who hadn’t fully gone. “They were a two-headed monster when it came to strategy,” said a former adviser.

Lee also managed Carlyle’s dual identity. The company shares its headquarters between Washington, its historical center of power, and New York, the epicenter of finance. This geographic and symbolic divide has widened during the pandemic. From New York, Lee had some success merging subscale companies and hiring new executives while pushing Carlyle into credit, real estate and insurance investments – trying to replicate much of what made Blackstone a giant.

Ultimately, his failed pay move showed that the old guard in Washington was not on his side. For one insider, it underscores the company’s identity crisis: “The center of gravity of the company has moved north, but not necessarily the center of power.”

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In the week after the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) approved the Tornado Cash website, the price of the token that underpins the scheme has fallen 56%, closing the week with a high of March 31 It started at $.56 and ended the week at a low of $13.09, according to CoinMarketCap.

Tornado Cash (TORN) is an ERC20 token and the native token of the Tornado Cash DAO used to manage governance and voting. It is currently the 691st largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $15.5 million.

After the US Treasury Department imposed its sanctions and Github took the Tornado Cash website offline by removing its repository from the site, the token price began to decline.

Launched in 2019, Tornado Cash is a blockchain protocol for sending and receiving anonymous transactions by mixing Ethereum tokens with a pool of other tokens, making the user anonymous.

In sanctioning Tornado Cash, the U.S. Treasury Department cited its use by North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group and the laundering of over $103.8 million through the hacks of the Horizon Harmony Bridge and Nomad Token Bridge earlier this summer.

After a debate by the Tornado Cash community, the group’s Discord server disappeared and unknown persons also took the forum on the Tornado Cash community website offline. At the same time, a member of the developer group behind Tornado Cash was taken into custody by law enforcement agencies in the Netherlands.

They arrested the developer of Tornado Cash. 🚨

I repeat, a man was arrested for writing code that served as a public good for people to maintain their privacy online.

They put a man in jail because bad people used his open source code.

That cannot exist in any free society.

— RYAN SΞAN ADAMS – rsa.eth 🦇🔊 (@RyanSAdams) August 12, 2022

The US Treasury Department’s Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) said its criminal investigation into Tornado Cash began in June 2022.

This crypto winter seems to be particularly tough for the Tornado Cash community. Coupled with the current bear market, sanctions, closures and arrests appear to have dealt a serious blow to the project as owners continue to flee.

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