Headline inflation of 2.4% came in lighter than expectations, but was still up meaningfully versus last month…

… despite continued pressure from last year’s tax holiday, which reduced food and alcohol inflation - but should be “out of the number” in April. That leaves a sharp reversal in transportation costs…

… on the back of a 21% increase in gas prices driven by the Iran conflict, which should be the driver of CPI going forward…

… masking the sixth straight month of declining core inflation.

Less than two weeks after G Mining’s $3B bid for G2 Goldfields, we’ve got more regional consolidation - with Agnico Eagle (AEM) spending $3.8B across three deals to expand its Finnish footprint…

… which it expects will drive $500M of synergies beyond the cost savings from eliminating property boundaries. Management aims to more-than-double local production to 500K ounces per year over the next decade…

… with exploration upside from the 2.5K km² land package (from 355 km² today). With $2.9B of the deal paid for in stock, >$2B of dry powder, and the massive spread over AISC generating a metric tonne of cash…

… the three-year, $60-100M exploration program is a drop in the bucket.

VersaBank (VBNK) was the only one in the peer group up in yesterday’s session after announcing it’s now receiving QCAD deposits - which should generate ~50 bps of risk-free NIM.

While we don’t expect this to impact results meaningfully, the progress opens the door to new custodian deals or RBDT adoption…

… which could add a material source of low cost deposits over time, providing a NIM tailwind if the balances prove sticky enough to lend against.

D2L Inc. (DTOL) ran nearly 15% on the back of an unsolicited $572M take-private proposal from 2717 Partners, which feels opportunistic at best - given the offer translates to 1.4x NTM EV/sales…

… despite signs of top line re-acceleration, with new wins in higher education offsetting some churn in the much smaller K-12 unit.

With $120M in cash, no debt, strong FCF generation, and a CEO that controls ~90% of the vote…

… it’s unlikely this stink bid materializes, but it does support management’s use of the buyback - which has been increasing alongside the software sell-off.

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