Burning Ears for Wednesday

Our quaint fishing village is at the heart of a couple business stories that are getting international attention (one about phones, the other malls). A local is an expert on a gambling scandal in Ohio. And we’re still using that old Sarah McLachlan connection Full links below.

EASTLINK MAKES THE CALL
from New York
Two Nova Scotia phone companies are fighting each other to take over Amtelecom, a small Ontario telco, and the prestigious Bloomberg business news organization is watching the action. The local companies are Aliant — making a low offer that Amtelecom called “opportunistic” — and Eastlink owner Bragg Communications, with a $103.8 million bid that the Ontario company is expected to happily accept. As Bloomberg reports:

Bragg, which offers phone service in Nova Scotia through EastLink, and rival Bell Aliant have sought Amtelecom to add users in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province. About 27,000 customers in Ontario buy phone, cable and Internet service from Amtelecom, whose sales rose 30 percent to C$31 million last year.

Bragg, also based in Halifax, is owned by John Bragg, 66, an officer of the Order of Canada and chancellor since January 2005 of Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, according to Canadian Who’s Who. Bragg operates in the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.

“There’s a complementary relationship between our two companies,” Bragg spokeswoman Paula Sibley said in an interview. “We looked at Amtelecom as a growth opportunity.” (full story here)

Some Canadian usual suspects are reporting on this story too, but Burning Ears doesn’t have to care.

IT’S A MALL WORLD, AFTER ALL
from Long Island, NY
With this story about local real estate company Homburg buying some American malls, Newsday has mentioned Halifax two days running. Which is about the most interesting thing I can say about the deal. Here’s what Newsday‘s Richard J. Dalton writes:

The shopping centers – one in Massachusetts and eight in Pennsylvania – are worth about $170 million combined, the company said in a statement. Cedar would receive net cash of about $73 million under the deal from the sale of its property to the joint venture and refinancing of two properties, according to the statement.

Cedar said it would hold a 20 percent interest in the joint venture, and Homburg Invest Inc., based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, would own the remaining 80 percent.

Homburg’s chairman and chief executive is Richard Homburg, a director of Cedar. (full story here)

You go, shopping magnate developer guy. You go.

IT’S A BALL WORLD, AFTER ALL
from Toledo, Ohio
The FBI. The University of Toledo’s football team. A point-shaving scandal. What comes next? Why, Halifax, of course. Our city is home base to a major sports-betting company, and they got the call when the Toledo Blade wanted someone who can comment on the messy U of T situation:

Jon Campbell, the senior editor at the Halifax, Nova Scotia-based Web site Covers.com, which provides detailed information on sports teams and players to bettors around the world, was familiar with the emerging Toledo scandal.

“College football is the most visible sport, and with Toledo playing on Tuesdays and Thursday nights, it was the only game going, so sports gamblers paid real close attention,” he said.

Mr. Campbell said manipulating the outcome in college football games would be difficult, since there are so many players and so many variables involved in each game.

“But it could be done,” he said. “There’s just no guarantee that it would work. You could bribe certain key players on offense and have them cooperate, and then have an interception or a fumble turn things upside-down. But if things went right, a pretty small group of players could do it.” (full story here)

You’re welcome, Toledo. We Haligonians are always happy to help.

THE ECMA-WINNING ARTIST
from Birmingham, Alabama
Magic 96.5, the Clear Channel station that claims to have “Birmingham’s Biggest Variety of Music,” says the following in its web bio of Sarah McLachlan:

McLachlan was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on January 28, 1968, where she took vocal training in addition to classical piano and guitar lessons as a child. After a year of art training at the Nova Scotia School of Design, while fronting a new wave band, October Game, Nettwerk Records approached her for a solo deal. She initially turned it down in favor of continued studies, but took them up on the offer in late 1987 and relocated to Vancouver. (full story here)

You see that, East Coast Music Association? She’s a BC singer. Stop giving her awards.

Send awards, or links that mention Halifax, here.

This article appears in Mar 29 – Apr 4, 2007.