The Federal Government Kills The BHP Acquisition of Potash Corp - Kevin Hursh

[shaney]

Unless you have been hiding under a rock this week you probably have heard about the Canadian Federal Government killing the BHP acquisition of Potash Corp. Saskatchewan holds a significant amount of the world's potash and the more people I talk to the more that I realize this is more than just about selling a Saskatchewan based company to foreign interest. It is also about reduced tax income and potential control of Saskatchewan's most important natural resource. The big surprise this week was that Stephen Harper Conservatives turned down the BHP bid which has gone in the face of traditional conservative free market business philosophies.

I talked to [URL="http://realagriculture.com/tag/kevin-hursh/"]Kevin Hursh[/URL] why he thinks the federal government put the brakes on the deal. Kevin explained to me why this deal is different than Viterra acquiring grain handling assets in Australia and he speculates on what will happen next in this saga of international business.

If you cannot see the below embedded video, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYd7cr858Y4">click here</a>

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[mustardman]

I've heard the Feds leaked to media-National Post that they were allowing the takeover to happen. They then looked at the backlash that was unfolding and said No No the newspapers have it wrong and stopped the deal.
Politics all the way thats the only reason with 13 mps from sask that could've take some flak if it went thru

[furrowtickler]

mustard, do you have a tin hat on???? With the tax base here, it would have been devastating - even though I hate the CEO with a passion, it may have crippled us for years. Like stealing the oilsand revenue from Alberta - tough call in a free market but sometimes it is the right thing to do.

[mustardman]

furrowtickler I AGREE WITH THE RESULT for fu-- sake. I am saying the feds did what they did for politics and nothing else.

Oh by the way it will happen again unless we change this Free for all royalty structure we have. Why would a company NOT think a hostile takeover would be allowed. We allow All capital costs to be deducted in one year and the provinces share of the potash is a pittance

Here is a novel idea,instead of having a race to the BOTTOM competing on royalty structure with Alberta, WHY Don't the provinces work together and set up similar royalties so oil and gas co can't play one gov't against the other. INCREASE Them.

The oil and gas might say to hell with you we're going to Alaska then. OH WAIT the TeaParty Queen (Sarah Palin) Dramatically increased the royaltys when she was in office in Alaska (makes ours look free)

[sawfly]

Dam socialists, commies , Wall and Harper , interfering in free enterprise, capitalism
go back to Russia.
if Sask. and Canada wanted that,
they would have voted NDP
LOL

[riders2010]

Is that deal really over with?