Toronto, Ontario — In this week’s Tuesday Ticker, Boyd gets back to mergers and acquisitions, reports suggest Tesla is working with a Canadian mining company and AkzoNobel prepares its third-quarter financial results.
Boyd’s back to buying
Last month, Boyd Group Services told investors it had re-entered the mergers and acquisitions game and had resumed spending to upgrade existing facilities.
CEO Tim O’Day told an earnings call Aug. 12 that Boyd stopped M&A because of the “significant uncertainty” at the beginning of the pandemic and discomfort over the idea of staff travelling to purchased body shops to integrate them.
“We are once again beginning to evaluate growth opportunities as they emerge,” CEO Tim O’Day said during the second-quarter earnings call.
Nickel negotiations
Tesla is in discussions with Canadian miner Giga Metals as the EV giant helps to develop a large mine that would give it access to low-carbon nickel for batteries, three people familiar with the matter told Automotive News Canada.
Giga Metal’s low carbon-nickel plans include turning waste from mining operations into cement-type rock using carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and hydropower.
In July, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Tesla would give “a giant contact for a long period of time” to a company that mines nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way.
Giga president Martin Vyndra declined to comment on any work with Tesla, but said Giga Metals is “actively engaged with automakers regarding [its] ability to produce carbon-neutral nickel.”
“The cost of developing our project, excluding bringing hydroelectric power to the site, will be less than $1 billion,” said Vyndra.
Used to store energy in batteries, nickel is expected to see a surge in demand over the coming years as governments, companies and consumers seek to curb emissions from fossil-fuel vehicles.
Most of the world’s new nickel production is anticipated to come from Indonesia, where the process would involve tossing mining waste into the ocean—a major concern for environmentalists.
Update from Akzo
AkzoNobel is predicting its 2020 third-quarter revenue will be close to that of previous years despite the ongoing pandemic, the company said in a recent update on its business performance.
On Sept. 10, AkzoNobel announced that, based on current trading, it expects total revenue for the third quarter to be “closer to previous year in constant currencies.” While trends differ in each region or segment, the company said market demand for decorative paints remains strong in Europe and South Africa, while it continues to improve for performance coatings.
The company’s third-quarter financial results will be announced on October 21, 2020.
