Job losses to come in wake of Cenovus-Husky transaction, but scale unknown - Calgary Herald

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Business Council of Alberta president Adam Legge acknowledged likely job losses.

“No one likes to see any further job losses than what this province has already been experiencing, and that’s the likely, unfortunate outcome of these kinds of mergers,” he said. “(It will be felt) through everything from real estate to job losses.”

Cenovus said Sunday they had yet to make any decisions on their office space.

In past Alberta oil and gas mergers, including the 2009 deal between Petro-Canada and Suncor, sublease space was added to the market as companies aimed to cut redundancies. The same could happen here, speculated Greg Kwong, the Calgary managing director for real-estate brokerage company CBRE.

“The public can focus on the fact that (Cenovus) is doing this to create efficiencies and come out a stronger, merged company,” Kwong said. “We’re mostly worried that this is a trend we’re going to see more of, maybe not to this magnitude, but with all companies struggling in this environment they’re going to look for efficiencies.”

Legge praised the merger from a business standpoint, saying it should make Cenovus more resilient and diverse and give the company “a new lease on life.”

“This is great news for Cenovus. It expands their footprint, gets them into some of the downstream retail market, which it sounds like they’ve been looking at for quite some time,” he said. “It’s probably a sign of more to come in the sense that as companies look to thrive in a new landscape, the reality is they’ll need to survive through scale.”

jherring@postmedia.com

Twitter: @jasonfherring

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https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMicmh0dHBzOi8vY2FsZ2FyeWhlcmFsZC5jb20vYnVzaW5lc3MvbG9jYWwtYnVzaW5lc3Mvc2NvcGUtb2Ytam9iLWxvc3Nlcy11bmNsZWFyLWluLXdha2Utb2YtY2Vub3Z1cy1odXNreS10cmFuc2FjdGlvbtIBoAFodHRwczovL2NhbGdhcnloZXJhbGQuY29tL2J1c2luZXNzL2xvY2FsLWJ1c2luZXNzL3Njb3BlLW9mLWpvYi1sb3NzZXMtdW5jbGVhci1pbi13YWtlLW9mLWNlbm92dXMtaHVza3ktdHJhbnNhY3Rpb24vd2NtLzc0ZTVlMTljLWZjMzctNGRlZi1hN2Q3LWIyODM2YWVmNzVkZS9hbXAv?oc=5

2020-10-25 22:22:49Z
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