Canadian Railroads > Former CP Oil Company moves to US.

Encana announced last week that it plans to move its headquarters from Calgary, AB. to an undisclosed US city.

Encana has in its corporate heritage CP Oil and Gas, a long established CP Limited subsidiary. CP started to divest when Pan Canadian was founded in the 1970's.

The Canadian Pacific Railway as built was funded in part by land grants from the Canadian Government.  In the case of CP, mineral rights were included in the lands granted.
CPOG was established early to exploit the oil and natural gas found on the granted lands.

CP also had the advantage of "checkerboarding", which allowed for land grants some distance from rail lines. This was justified so that land for settlement had access to water, and also land unsuitable for farming close to the tracks could be excluded from the grant. This also allowed CP to seek granted land where there could be oil or gas.



 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/19 15:05 by eminence_grise.

Canadian Pacific also has a residual class of debt obligations (bonds)  which require payment with 4% cash interest or two oz of gold per $1,000 of face amount.  The company has settled claims in cash for decades, but the issue re-emerged in the Ackman - Pershing battle.  It has surfaced earlier when the company sought to lease certain mortgaged property for cable conduits, and when the hotels and oil companies were spun out.

The Globe & Mail has a  2015 short summary on the wise decision not to reshuffle CP's financial house and risk opening that lawsuit jackpot.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/why-cps-old-time-bondholders-have-a-big-say-in-the-future/article4105862/