Posted Aug 30, 2017, 10:27 PM
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Premier Wall says he expects head-office pledge to be honoured after PotashCorp-Agrium merger
Alex MacPherson, Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Published on: August 30, 2017 | Last Updated: August 30, 2017 4:19 PM CST
Quote:
Premier Brad Wall says he expects the “spirit and the letter” of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan’s pledge to the province after BHP Billiton’s failed takeover attempt to be reflected in Nutrien Ltd. — the company being formed when PotashCorp and Agrium merge later this year.
To that extent, Wall told reporters Wednesday in Regina, the province’s newly-minuted energy and resource minister Nancy Heppner will be contacting Saskatoon-based PotashCorp as well as Agrium, which is headquartered in Calgary, in the coming weeks to ensure that Nutrien’s head office is in Saskatchewan.
In a Sept. 12, 2016 news release announcing the merger, which will create a company valued at US$26 billion and with around 20,000 employees, PotashCorp and Agrium said the then-unnamed firm’s “registered head office” will be in Saskatoon, with corporate offices in Saskatoon and Calgary. A registered head office can be, but is not necessarily, the office where a firm’s executives work.
“We want to ensure that Saskatchewan, as the head office for this company, has the maximum number of head office jobs, that the presence in this province is indisputably the head office,” Wall told reporters Wednesday after shuffling his 17-member cabinet.
In a 2011 letter to Wall, former PotashCorp chief executive Bill Doyle made seven commitments, including a pledge that the company would maintain “a strong and vital corporate headquarters” in the province, with 11 of its 14 senior executives living and working in Saskatoon. Some of those executives had previously worked out of an office in Northbrook, Illinois.
In a return letter, Wall accepted Doyle’s pledge and said he appreciated PotashCorp’s commitment to expand its head office staff in Saskatoon by 40 per cent, to 300 positions, by the end of 2013, as well as have 11 of the firm’s senior executives move to the city by March. 31, 2011.
In 2010, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government blocked BHP Billiton’s $40-billion hostile bid, arguing that it wouldn’t provide a “net benefit” for Canada. Ottawa had been under pressure from the provincial government, which was concerned about job losses and the loss of control of a valuable resource.
PotashCorp and Agrium recently said the merger is expected to close in the third quarter of 2017.
—With Leader-Post files from D.C. Fraser
amacpherson@postmedia.com
twitter.com/macphersona
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