With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/325830
76 BCBusiness July 2014 industrial space, including Colliers, experienced growth in 2013. Yet change is afoot. B.C.'s export success is linked to the Asia-Pacifi c region, and the story in recent years has been of Chinese companies seek- ing to establish subsidiaries here: the Agricultural Bank of China, for exam- ple, chose Vancouver for its Cana- dian headquarters in 2012. A glance at the major shareholders in the Top 100 companies, however, indicates that investment has started to take a more subtle form, with Asian investors acquiring stakes in strategic sectors. Teck disclosed its single biggest share- holder as China Investment Corp., at 18 per cent, a shift from last year when Temagami Mining Co. Ltd. held the honour at 28 per cent. Meanwhile, China Gold International Resources Corp. Ltd. returned to the list, and its major shareholder is state-owned China National Gold Group Corp., with a 39-per-cent ownership stake. Asian ownership interests were not limited to China; the biggest share- holder disclosed for Capstone Mining Corp. is Korea Resources Corp. at 10.6 per cent. Korea is B.C.'s fourth-biggest trading partner, making the invest- ment a natural evolution of the exist- ing relationship. The infl ux of foreign investment was not matched by a rise in charitable giving. Although overall donations to the province's biggest charities saw aggregate tax-receiptable donations rise 5.9 per cent in 2013, many chari- ties surveyed posted signifi cant drops in donations. SFU, for example, saw donations fall 55.6 per cent, and Fam- ily Services of the North Shore and the David Suzuki Foundation saw dona- tions fall 33 per cent and 23.6 per cent, respectively. The explanation might be found in Statistics Canada's most recent survey of charitable giving, based on 2012 tax returns. (Offi cial numbers from 2013 tax returns are not yet available.) While the median donation to char- ity in B.C. in 2012 rose to $390 from $370 in 2011 and 2010, the number of active donors fell. In short, those who chose to give gave more, and a select few benefi ted; others depending on smaller donors suff ered. ■ p072-077-Top100_OverviewUSE THIS ONE.indd 76 14-05-30 11:10 AM