The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 25

Plasty Mi 'toiiy mji'i S3 ME TSE HOW THEY CLOSED fOI IO 1933.66 UP 18 84 4055.48 UP41.37 I ID WeatherC8 DOW GOLD DOLLAR 3598.99 UP 11.73 $356.40 UP $3.43 74.98 UP 0.17 Business I II 1 im rums i iiac -irairview iinus connon i Crowd-drawing tenants take space left by former Steinberg and Pascal stores Share prices surged ahead in Toronto yesterday, boosted mainly by the rising price of gold. Montreal also gained, while the New York market finished mixed. PAGE C2 Unigesco debenture holders who have been hoping to get a final payment this month on their holdings may be out of luck. PAGE C3 "-it andrew Mcintosh the gazette September help-wanted index: 81, down from 85 in August (1991100). rr; tt i 't9 II i 100; 90- ft I' 1 80 rv i i -lk i i nnnnnnnnnnnnn? SONDJFMAMJJAS 1992 1993 The index measures demand for labor in newspaper help-wanted ads in 20 cities.

Source: Statistics Canada The project included redesigned skylights which have increased natural light, new interiors, a new food court and the upgrading or replacement of the building's air-conditioning and electrical systems. Pambianchi said 30 new retail stores have opened 'at the centre because of the renovation job, including several stores catering to younger adults. He said younger shoppers had started shopping at Nearby rival Place Versailles because Galeries d'Anjou had earned the reputation aver the years of having become a mall for older consumers. "Our renovations were long overdue. The centre vas old and tired-looking," he said.

Pambianchi said Cadillac Fairview has no current plans to build any other malls in Quebec because the market for shopping malls here and elsewhere across Canada is saturated. Cadillac Fairview is owned by JMB Corp. of Chicago and 39 pension funds, including Quebec's Caisse de Depot et Placement. Pambianchi said Cadillac Fairview has no qualms about investing in Quebec, despite its uncertain political future. "Separation or not, people will still be buying socks and underwear and we want our centres to be there to sell these items toeople," Pambianchi said.

The demise of Steinberg's and the Pascal's hardware stores in Quebec initially seemed like a severe financial blow to developer and shopping-centre manager Cadillac Fairview Corp. The company suddenly found itself with 460,000 square feet of empty retail space in its greater Montreal shopping malls as Quebec entered a steep recession. "We were worried," Cadillac Fairview vice-president Mauro Pambianchi admitted yesterday. But the Toronto-based developer -which owns stakes in Fairview Pointe Claire, Carrefdur Laval, Promenades St. Bruno, Place Montreal Trust and the newly modernized Galeries d'Anjou -has managed to transform the potential disaster into an enviable salvage operation.

At Promenades St. Bruno, the space occupied by a former Steinberg's store was renovated and divided into smaller areas. The Zellers chain store moved in and six new smaller retailers opened their doors, Pambianchi said. At Carrefour Laval, the huge former Pascal hardware store was divided into three smaller stores now rented by the Bureau en Gros office-supply warehouse Southam News Graphics Fewer help-wanted ads placed Job prospects for the country's 1.6 million unemployed darkened further in September, according to Statistics Canada's help-wanted index, which fell for the second straight month to a 10-year low. PAGE C3 Trying to increase home ownership GAZETTE, PIERRE OBENDRAUF Cadillac Fairview's Mauro Pambianchi visited Galeries d'Anjou yesterday.

store, Boutique Marie Claire and the Wise department store. In each case, Pambianchi said, the new stores have increased consumer traffic at the malls, which benefits all the mall's tenants. "What started off as a problem for us has become a situation which has been beneficial to all our tenants and to shoppers," he added. Pambianchi was in Montreal yesterday for the "relaunch" of the Galeries d'Anjou following an $18-million renovation and refurbishing of the 25-year-old mall. Cadillac Fairview co-owns the property with Markborough Properties Inc.

Three out of four Montrealers don't own their own homes, far more than in the rest of Quebec. The city of Montreal hopes to change the imbalance, writes real-estate columnist Mary Lamey. PAGE C3 14 vv tJ A ifrfttiMMni Bfrnrr- Lost $46 8,100 cheque sparked 8-year lege ROD MACD0NELL THE GAZETTE A 1 How the fight developed November 1983 Middle East businessman Hassan Shour applies for life-insurance coverage for himself and his family for total coverage of $14 million. December 1983 Application approved by Manulife. Jan.

19, 1984 Shour Resale market slower in September September provided no happy surprises for the Montreal residential real-estate sector, the Greater Montreal Real Estate Board reported yesterday. Transactions listed with the board's Multiple Listing Service declined 5.2 per cent to 1,284 units. Sales volume decreased by 5.4 per cent to slightly more than $145 million. There 35,169 active listings in September, compared with 33,927 during the period a year earlier. hands Agouri a cheque for $468,100 drawn on London account of July 1984 Manulife contacts Credit Lyonnais direct, learns Lyonnais never received the cheque.

Jan. 31, 1985 Manulife gives up being paid for Shour coverage, tells Agouri it will withhold all his commissions to recover $256,000 commission on Shour policy. Feb. 5, 1985 Agouri's bid to settle with Manulife is rebuffed. Oct.

10, 1985 Agouri launches suit against Manulife in Quebec Superior Court, which in turn sues Bank of Montreal. July 24, 1992 Judge Claude Benoit rules in Agouri's favor, orders Manulife to cough up $600,000 in capital and interest; orders Bank of Montreal topay $468,100 to Manulife. (Both lowers appeal) Oct. 13, 1993 Quebec Court of Appeal td hear appeals from bank, Manulife. Credit Lyonnais.

Feb. 9. 1984 Agouri "The cheque is in the mail" is a line deadbeat debtors use to stave off creditors. But for insurance agent Pierre Agouri, the cheque for $468,100 was indeed put in the mail by the Bank of Montreal, and then lost. The errant cheque, lost through no fault of Agouri, cost him his lucrative business with the country's biggest insurer, Manulife, and sparked a legal battle between Agouri and Manulife and Manulife and the Bank of Montreal that has been going on for eight years.

Agouri, 55, emerged the winner from the Quebec Superior Court trial while the two losers, Manulife and the bank, came under unusually sharp criticism from Justice Claude Benoit for what he described as their negligence and slipshod practices. The victory for Agouri was a ruling that ordered Manulife to pay him about $600,000 in capital and interest and held that the Bank of Montreal had to pay Manulife the $468,100 value of the lost cheque. "It has been ugly, very ugly," said Agouri, who is still in the insurance business but with only three employees, down from the 10 he had in 1984. The dispute is being waged by Montreal's heavy-hitting legal artillery, with two of the largest law firms in the city represented. Stikeman Elliot's Mortimer Freiheit is pressing Agouri's case and Louis-Paul Cullen of Ogilvy Renault is defending Manulife.

Agouri said the case has cost gives cheque to Manulife Feb. 15, 1984 Manulife deposits cheque at Toronto branch of Bank of Montreal. Feb. 16, 1984 of mails cheque to Credit Lyonnais, London. March 27, 1984 Bank of Montreal sends tracer by mail to Credit Lyonnais to locate cheque, followed by tracers in April, June.

GAZETTE, PIERRE OBENDRAUF Pierre Agouri with his court files. him about $600,000 in legal fees, and the meter is still ticking. Next Wednesday the case is to be heard by the Quebec Court of Appeal. In 1984 Agouri, then a 20-year veteran with Manulife and among its top salesman worldwide, underwrote a policy on the life of Middle East businessman Hassan Shour and Shour's family providing them with 14 million in coverage. Shour handed Agouri a cheque for $468,100 drawn on Shour's London account with the Credit Lyonnais bank, for Agouri to deliver to Manulife.

Agouri handed the cheque over to Manulife, which deposited it with its Toronto branch of the Bank of Montreal. cheque to Manulife, that he was told the cheque had been lost. i Even if the cheque had been found at this point, it was uncashablc because it was stale-dated bankers' jargon for a cheque that's more than six months old. The bank then sent the cheque by mail to the London branch of the Credit Lyonnais. The cheque never reached its destination and Judge Benoit held the Bank of Montreal responsible for losing it.

It was not until August 1984, seven months after Agouri had given the 10 PLEASE SEE CHEQUE, PAGE C3 "It must have been a power surge." JL 5 I JL JL babty the boss anvDODV qoi a decern ra se asi wear, i was ora 1 1 JAY BRYAN A survey of salary trends made public this week by a big management-consulting firm sheds new light on who really pays for the painful cost-cutting imposed on Canadian workers by the restructuring that is transforming this country's economy. answer will come as little surprise to anybody wno's followed the trends reflected in such surveys over the past decade. The employees whose pay raises are being squeezed the most are those who earn the least. Of all employees who received raises last year -about 1 1 per cent got nothing at all the average employee got an increase of 3.4 per cent, or 1.6 per cent above the rate of inflation. But at the top of the income scale, where one finds the executives whose appointees and close associates on the board of directors decide pay policy, the average pay increase was a lot larger.

Here the average increase was 4. 1 per cent. After deducting inflation, the real purchasing power of an executive's base salary rose 2.3 percent. That might look like a small number, but it means executives averaged a 44 per cent bigger raise than the average employee. And for executives, of course, base salary is only the beginning, There is also the "incentive" bonus that is pay package.

But what about a lousy executive? The talents needed to do a mediocre or below-par job are quite easy to find. So why would it be that when you average out the talented and the untalented executives, they still get not only much larger pay envelopes than other workers, but biggerraises as well, which means that the gap keeps getting wider? Workers are being told that they have to work harder, smarter and longer for little or no pay increase if Canada is to remain competitive. Perhaps this is true, but the message would be more plausible if those trumpeting the message applied it equally to themselves. A second scandal is that managers aren't subject to effective scrutiny from their ultimate bosses, the shareholders. Unlike the U.S., where excessive management pay is being addressed by shareholders at many companies and by securities regulators as well, Canadian securities authorities have shielded their pals in the executive suite from the prying eyes of those who actually own the company.

Since shareholders in Canada can't find out what they are paying their companies' chief executives and other top managers, is it any surprise that they can't address this issue clfectively? "That surprised me a little bit, because if you look at the financial statements of companies over the last couple of years, their performance has been anything but sterling," said Martin Harts, the partner at K.PMG Peat Marwick Stevenson Kellogg who was responsible for the pay survey. "If I were a board member, it would certainly be a question that I would want to focus on," said Harts. He pointed out that while bonus programs are supposed to be a reward reserved for executives who actually make their shareholders more money, they are all too often paid out on the basis of an executive's being a nice guy who is well-liked. The people out in the trenches are doubtless nice and likeable, too. But, sadly, they haven't been spending enough quality time in the executive dining room with those soft-hearted teddy bears on the board of directors, so their fine qualities tend to go unperccived.

There are two scandals here. One is simple equity. Most people accept that the boss is entitled to a bigger salary than other workers. She has bigger responsibilities and almost certainly works longer hours than other workers. As well, the talents that make a successful executive are fairly rare, so you have to expect that they will command a good supposed to act as a relentless prod for them to work harder and perform better.

In theory, executives who boost profit in an exemplary fashion get nice big bonuses, while those who don't get little or nothing. The fact is a little different. Although the survey covered the year ended last April, a period during which most Canadian companies' profits remained far below normal levels, it turned out that more than two-thirds of executives got bonuses. Of executives who got them, 98 per cent received the full "target" bonus supposedly reserved for payout in a year of at least normal profitability. HWlliMiiMlififrliril" A Day With Mintzberg: Managing People, Information and Action.

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