Canadian conglomerate Onex Corp. and U.S. private equity firm The Carlyle Group have teamed up to buy Allison Transmission from GM for $5.6 billion US. General Motors had announced back in January that it wanted to sell Allison as part of its restructuring planto raise money and concentrate on its core business of vehicle production. Onex Corp. three-month trading The sale includes Allison’s seven manufacturing plants in Indianapolis. Allison, which makes transmissions for commercial...
Vacationers spending $500 on one-day oilsands tour
Posted in shopping | Thursday, July 26th, 2007 | Trackback
Forget fall leaf tours or autumndayson a cottage dock vacationers aresigning up fora September trip to frolic inAlberta’s oilsands.
Classic Canadian Tours will fly passengers from Calgary to Fort McMurray to get a first-hand glimpse of what isdriving theprovince’s economy.
Brenda Trockstad, a spokeswoman for the Calgarytravel company,saidcustomers willtour the Oil Sands Discovery Centre, visit Suncor’ssite “to get a close up view of what it takes to extract oil from the tar sands,”and see a park reclaimed from past developments.
Geologists aren’t the only people plunking down more than $500 for the one-day trip, she said.They’ve taken bookings from professors, retirees, farmers, andeven investors who want to see what energy companies are doing.
“We kind of thought of it as being for a man, the equivalent of a woman going to a spa,” she said. “I must say that more than half of our people coming on this tour so far are women.”
A view of the Suncor Energy plant north of Fort McMurray.
(Canadian Press)
Marius Vos, a retired engineer who lives on Vancouver Island, has booked his ticket. He recalls a university professor speaking decades ago about the northern oilsands and he’s just curious to see what’s happening there.
“I would like to see what equipment they have up there and how they work it,” he said. “They’re spending billions of dollars up there, several different companies.It’s mind-boggling, I’m quite sure, butI can’t imagine it from here so I’d like to see it first hand.”
Trockstad says based on the interested calls from customers, the company will be offering more one-day trips in the future.
