Open this photo in gallery:
Where in Canada will Meta build its artificial intelligence data centre? Take our business and investing news quizMeta/Reuters
Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s business and investing news quiz. Join us each week to test your knowledge of the stories making headlines. Our business reporters come up with the questions, and you can show us what you know.
This week: Ottawa chose Germany’s TKMS to build the country’s first significant submarine fleet, U.S. President Donald Trump met with NATO leaders and Air Canada named a new CEO. Take our quiz and find out what happened in business.
1This was the week when Ottawa chose Germany’s TKMS to build this country’s first significant submarine fleet. At the moment, how many subs does Canada typically have in active operation?
a. Eight
b. Six
c. Four
d. One
d. Canada owns four subs, all of which were purchased second-hand, and only one of which is typically operational. The Canadian military says it needs 12 subs to properly defend the country.
2This was also the week when Meta Platforms announced it plans to spend more than $13-billion to build a massive artificial intelligence data centre in Canada. Where will the centre be located?
a. Outside of Vancouver
b. Outside of Calgary
c. Outside of Edmonton
d. Outside of Saskatoon
c. Meta Platforms plans to build a massive AI data centre in Sturgeon County, north of Edmonton. It will sprawl across 1,750 acres, making it bigger than Stanley Park in Vancouver.
3U.S. President Donald Trump is once again demonstrating his remarkable ability to antagonize just about everyone. Meeting with other NATO leaders at a summit in Ankara, Turkey, what did Mr. Trump say?
Check all that applies
a. Iranian leaders were “scum”
b. He was cutting off trade with Spain
c. Canada is the 51st state
d. The U.S. should control Greenland
a, b, d. Mr. Trump threw the NATO summit into disarray when he demanded the United States cut trade ties with Spain and renewed his claims on Greenland. He also said the fragile U.S.-Iran truce is over and labelled Iranian leaders “scum” and “sick people.” The good news here? The U.S. president didn’t launch into his usual 51st state insults about Canada. And at least according to him, the NATO meetings demonstrated love and “a lot of unity.” Sure thing.
4Apex Capital, a London- and Portugal-based private equity firm, announced this week that it is investing up to $30-million in a Canadian league devoted to which sport?
a. Men’s lacrosse
b. Women’s basketball
c. Co-ed volleyball
d. Women’s soccer
d. Apex is investing in the Northern Super League, a six-team women’s soccer league co-founded by two-time Olympic bronze medalist Diana Matheson and business partner Thomas Gilbert. The league, which kicked off a year ago, said it generated more than $30-million in commercial revenue in its first season, including ticket sales, merchandise and sponsorships from partners such as Canadian Tire and Bank of Montreal.
5Companies are competing to expand cryptocurrency trading in Canada, but what is not yet clear is how investors will respond. How has bitcoin, the best-known cryptocurrency, performed over the past year?
a. It has lost about 40 per cent of its value
b. It has gained about 20 per cent
c. It has held its value but with considerable volatility
d. It has held its value with next to no volatility
a. Bitcoin has lost about 40 per cent of its value in Canadian dollar terms over the past 12 months, but that hasn’t stopped companies from seeking to cash in on investors’ willingness to trade digital tokens. On June 30, Webull Canada announced it would offer cryptocurrency trading after receiving approval from the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization. One day later, the U.S-based brokerage Robinhood Markets, officially launched its popular trading app in Canada with a focus on crypto.
6GFL Environmental, the Canadian-American waste-management giant, is in talks to do what?
a. Go public
b. Go private
c. Split in two
d. Acquire its largest U.S. rival
b. GFL has been approached by two private equity firms about a potential privatization. The bidders are looking to capitalize on a recent market sell-off across the waste management sector.
7According to a survey by consultants KPMG Canada, what are roughly 40 per cent of Canadian manufacturers considering?
a. Replacing substantial numbers of their employees with AI robots
b. Moving production to the United States
c. Hiring lobbyists in Washington
d. Selling out to international rivals
b. Forty-two per cent of Canadian manufacturing companies have moved production to the United States or are considering doing so because of trade tensions, according to a KPMG survey of 275 businesses. Last week, United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the U.S. is not renewing the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement “in its current form”. The decision triggers a rolling annual review for up to a decade, at which point it will expire if an extension isn’t agreed upon.
8Which company announced this week it is slashing 4,800 jobs as it seeks to boost returns in its troubled gaming business?
a. Sony
b. Nintendo
c. Microsoft
d. Alphabet
c. Microsoft is cutting 4,800 jobs, or about 2.1 per cent of its global work force, as it overhauls its Xbox gaming business. Despite spending tens of billions of dollars to expand Xbox, including its blockbuster acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has struggled to narrow the gap with Sony’s PlayStation and Nintendo.
9Space is hot, hot, hot. Which Canadian company made a major satellite-related acquisition this week?
a. MDA Space
b. Shopify
c. Telesat
d. Magellan Aerospace
a. MDA Space of Brampton, Ont., is buying a 70-per-cent stake in the French earth observation company Collecte Localisation Satellites for roughly $920-million in cash. CLS, headquartered in Toulouse, France, was founded in 1986 as a subsidiary of the French space agency and provides a range of space-based data analytics services. It employs 1,200 people.
10Markets are bonkers, bonkers, bonkers. Samsung Electronics, the South Korean tech giant, beat analysts’ expectations this week, posting an operating profit for the second-quarter that was 19 times higher than a year earlier. How did its share price respond?
a. It rocketed 30 times higher
b. It doubled
c. It did absolutely nothing
d. It slid
d. Samsung’s share price fell as much as 10 per cent despite the boom in earnings. It appears that investors’ expectations are so high that even a massive increase in profits can’t satisfy them.
11What has hit its lowest level in Canada since at least 2005?
a. Food inflation
b. Home starts
c. Merger and acquisition activity
d. Corporate borrowing
c. The pace of Canadian merger and acquisition activity is plummeting. Just 460 transactions involving Canadian companies were announced during the second quarter, according to a report from LSEG Data & Analytics. That is the lowest deal count for any three-month period since at least 2005. What’s driving the fall in activity? Trade uncertainty, fallout from the Iran war and rising borrowing costs all seem to be playing a role.
12Air Canada has named a new chief executive – and, yes, he does speak French, unlike his controversially unilingual predecessor. In fact, Anko Van der Werff, who is currently CEO of Scandinavian Airlines, also speaks:
Check all that applies
a. English
b. Swedish
c. Italian
d. Mandarin
a, b, c. Mr. Van der Werff’s linguistic ability puts most Canadian executives to shame. The new Air Canada CEO speaks six languages: his native Dutch as well as English, French, Italian, Spanish and Swedish. No Mandarin, though – at least, not yet.
How well did you do?
Answer all of the questions to see your result
This wasn’t your week, but that’s okay! We’ll be back next Friday with another business and investing quiz, subscribe to our weekday Business Brief newsletter to prepare.