ACQUISITION OF COMMON SHARES AND WARRANTS OF ATLAS ENERGY CORP. BY MARK HODGSON
Concurrent with the Private Placement, the Company: (a) changed its name to "Atlas Energy Corp." from "Willow Biosciences Inc."; (b) consolidated its Common Shares on the basis of one (1) post-consolidation Common Share for every five (5) pre-consolidation Common Shares (the " Consolidation"); (c) appointed a new management team (the " New Executive Team") led by Mark Hodgson as President and Chief Executive Officer, Travis Doupe as Chief Financial Officer, Don Kornelsen as Vice President, Commercial, Ryan Giroux as Vice President, Corporate Development and Blair Anderson as Vice President, Geoscience of the Company and Richard Naden as a Senior Executive; and (d) reconstituted its board of directors, with the new board being comprised of Mark Hodgson, Richard F. McHardy, Gary Brown, Glenn McNamara and Scott Price. For the purposes of this Press Release, all figures are presented on a post-Consolidation basis.
The New Executive Team will focus on investing in producing and growth-oriented oil and gas assets aligned with their prior operating expertise. With a disciplined and diversified strategy, the Company will aim to acquire economic interests in undercapitalized assets that have been overlooked amid recent shifts in capital allocation within the industry. The portfolio will be structured to manage risk and capture upside by balancing exposure across jurisdictions, asset stages, commodity price dynamics and offtake structures. The Company is uniquely positioned as one of the only royalty and streaming platforms dedicated to international oil and gas - offering a rare opportunity to generate strong shareholder returns in an underserved segment of the market.
Immediately following the completion of the Private Placement, Acquiror beneficially owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, 80,000,000 Common Shares and 80,000,000 Warrants pursuant to the Private Placement, representing 12.71% (on a non-diluted basis) and 22.55% (on a fully diluted basis) of the voting securities of the Company. Prior to the Private Placement, Acquiror did not hold any securities of Atlas.
Acquiror acquired the Common Shares and Warrants for investment purposes and may, in the future, increase or decrease its ownership of securities of Atlas, directly or indirectly, from time to time depending upon, among other things, the business and prospects of Atlas and future market conditions.
For further details regarding the acquisition of the Common Shares and Warrants described above, see the Early Warning Report dated July 4, 2025, available on the Company's SEDAR+ profile.
SOURCE Mark Hodgson
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Winnipeg Free Press
2 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Manitoba exports to U.S., China plummet
While Manitoba's exports to the United States and China plunged earlier this year, the dollar value of its imports soared. U.S. imports to Manitoba hit roughly $10.97 billion in January through May — an eight per cent increase from the same time in 2024. Meanwhile, imports from China jumped 6.9 per cent year-over-year, totalling $684 million. 'It's surprising,' said Chuck Davidson, president of the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce. Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun Files Canola and corn grow south of Rivers on Tuesday. Canola oil and meal have been slapped with massive import tariffs by the Chinese government, leading to a downturn in trade. He's tracked a sentiment across businesses to bring their supply chains closer to home. Uncertainty has rocked the private sector since Donald Trump was elected U.S. president in November. Tariffs and tariff threats have made regular headlines, shaking operations and causing companies to pause future investments. Davidson pointed to a weaker Canadian dollar: some companies can't get materials they require within Canada and must pull from the United States. Those goods are likely more expensive, he surmised. A Canadian dollar equated to US$0.73 on Wednesday. The exchange rate began increasing last fall, ahead of the U.S. election. Companies also bulk bought in preparation for tariffs, noted Fletcher Baragar, a University of Manitoba economics professor. The rush could've shown in the January through May import numbers, recently released by the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics. Manitoba's exports to the U.S. dropped 14.7 per cent year-over-year; they fell 29.8 per cent when looking at China. The export values totalled $5.55 billion and $481 million, respectively. Davidson cited the 'Trump factor' for the U.S. decrease. The Trump administration has placed tariffs on aluminum, steel and items not meeting the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement on trade. Globally, countries have been slapped with U.S. tariffs. It's affected businesses like Kathy Tran-Riese's. Tran-Riese opted to pause sales in the U.S., starting in May, to avoid the cost of her glasses frames more than doubling. KayTran Eyewear imports frames to Winnipeg from China before exporting to the United States. The U.S. deems the goods Chinese by their country of origin; Trump stripped China of an exemption where packages under $800 were shielded from tariffs. 'I had a pretty large consumer base in the U.S.,' Tran-Riese said Wednesday. Roughly half of her revenue came from the southern clientele. However, since halting shipments to the U.S., she's seen an 80 per cent jump in sales: she's been holding pop-ups across Canada. '(There's) an initial myth that you think you have to … have a stronghold in the U.S. to build good revenue,' said Tran-Riese, who had Canadian customers asking for pop-ups before Trump's inauguration. 'This has really taught me otherwise.' Boosting interprovincial trade will help lessen reliance on United States exports, Davidson said. So will increasing trade to other countries, both he and Baragar relayed. Manitoba's non-U.S. exports jumped 6.5 per cent year over year, when comparing January through May. The total reached $2.55 billion. Non-U.S. imports rose at a faster pace — up 10.3 per cent, to $3.65 billion. 'I suspect we'll probably see more of that in the future, but those numbers are proportionately very, very small,' Baragar said. 'There's enormous potential for growth, but Canada — certainly for the last 50 years — hasn't really been looking in those directions.' Nineteen European delegates visited Manitoba in April, expressing a desire for more trade. Africa and other Pacific Rim countries are also candidates for future growth, from Baragar's view. Chinese tariffs remain in place. Cam Dahl, general manager of Manitoba Pork, said he's 'not surprised' by the statistic of fewer exports. China placed tariffs of 100 per cent on Canadian canola oil, canola meal and peas, and of 25 per cent on some pork, fish and seafood. The measures came as retaliation to Canadian tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle imports. Dahl is meeting with Canadian, American and Mexican counterparts later this week to discuss trade, among other topics. 'It just shows — the understanding of the value of that integrated market isn't just in Canada, it goes across North America,' he said. 'There's just so much uncertainty.' Prime Minister Mark Carney has circled July 21 as a Canada-U.S. deal deadline. The outcome will shape Manitoba's import and export numbers for the rest of the year, Baragar forecast. British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia joined Manitoba in experiencing a year-over-year decrease in international merchandise exports in May. (Manitoba's drop was the largest, at 19 per cent.) Energy, forestry and industrial equipment exports plunged that month, Statistics Canada data shared publicly by the Saskatchewan government show. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. Generally, Manitoba exports decreased nine per cent — to $8.11 billion — when comparing 2025's first five months to 2024's. Imports jumped 8.5 per cent, to $14.62 billion. Manitoba trucking firms have been shuttering and laying off staff due to less demand, the Manitoba Trucking Association confirmed last week. The provincial government is increasing its export support program and passed the Fair Trade in Canada Act to promote trade within Canada and abroad, Business Minister Jamie Moses said in a statement. The New Democrats hired Richard Madan, a former reporter, to become Manitoba's trade representative to the U.S. Gabrielle PichéReporter Gabrielle Piché reports on business for the Free Press. She interned at the Free Press and worked for its sister outlet, Canstar Community News, before entering the business beat in 2021. Read more about Gabrielle. Every piece of reporting Gabrielle produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Vancouver Sun
2 hours ago
- Vancouver Sun
Opinion: Canada's sacred cows in the U.S. trade bull's-eye
A quick quiz: What do U.S. tech billionaires and B.C. dairy farmers have in common? They're both sharing centre stage in the on-again-off-again Canada-U.S. economic and security talks. Soon we will know who has been traded off against whom as this saga lurches to its finale. Canada has known since 2022 that it's Digital Service Tax (DST) has been a major trade irritant to the U.S. However, it took one presidential tweet in the middle of intense trade negotiations to get rid of it — just as it was to begin banking tax revenues on Canada Day. This move was widely seen as a negotiating concession, yet where it plays out is as yet unknown as talks steam toward the leaders' July 21 deadline. It does, however, clear the decks for U.S. President Trump to take aim at another favourite trade irritant profiled in the very same Truth Social posting — namely, Canada's import restrictions on dairy products under our supply management system that he alleges impose a greater than 400 per cent tariff on U.S. exports. A daily roundup of Opinion pieces from the Sun and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Informed Opinion will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Just over a week before Trump's blast, the Canadian government had boldly legislated its intent to protect supply management's import control mechanisms in trade negotiations. Bill C-202 reinforced an election commitment made several weeks earlier when Prime Minister Carney declared 'supply management is part of our economic sovereignty. When it comes to negotiations with President Trump, it's off the table.' These brave proclamations haven't evidently dissuaded Trump. On the surface, a trade-off between the DST and supply management seems to be an easy political decision. The DST would have tacked on an additional three per cent tax for customers accessing digital services like Netflix and Amazon e-commerce orders. Supply management, however, governs over 9,000 dairy farms in Canada — 46 per cent of which are in politically volatile Quebec, which has 10 times the number of dairy farms as B.C. Since 1970, Canada's dairy producers have operated under a system that manages the supply of milk and milk products in the domestic market. Producers are allocated production quotas that control their share of domestic output. The market share allocated to imports is controlled through tariff rate quotas (TRQs), which allow for free or relatively low tariffs on imports up to a certain negotiated level. Imports above that level are subject to high, prohibitive tariffs — as in Trump's claimed 400 per cent. (The actual level is closer to 300 per cent.) The current TRQ levels on U.S. dairy exports to Canada were set in the Trump-negotiated Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) in 2018. To further complicate matters, the entire system is backstopped by provincial milk marketing boards that manage regional production quotas and, through internal trade barriers, regulate market access from out-of-province Canadian suppliers. On the whole, the system aims to balance supply with demand, preventing surpluses and shortages while maintaining a fair and stable return for producers. Consumers are promised a consistent and stable supply, albeit at higher retail prices than in other markets. For example, it has been estimated that Canadians pay almost 20 per cent more for milk than their American counterparts. Lately, this premium has assumed a new mantle as the stable supply promise helps strengthen food security in Canada. Production quotas are the primary engine through which the system operates. When supply management was introduced some 50 years ago, quotas were allocated for free among existing producers. Like any fabricated market mechanism, they quickly gathered a value of their own. As of 2024, there were just over 10,000 quota holders and the combined value of the quota held was estimated at $32 billion. That is considerably more than the actual value of the milk produced, with net annual dairy farm receipts of $8.9 billion. Canada's trade negotiators argue that supply management's import controls need to be seen in the context of world dairy subsidies. In Canada's program, the consumer pays the subsidy to producers through higher prices. In the U.S., dairy producers are directly subsidized through taxpayer-paid aid schemes to the tune of CDN$30 billion per year. In some years, these subsidies have helped generate huge milk surpluses in the U.S. that have to be dumped. With fewer dairy farms than Canada, the state of Wisconsin produces 30 per cent more milk than Canada. The European Union's massive and massively complicated Community Agriculture Policy gives roughly CDN$80 billion per year to its agriculture sector, in which the dairy sector constitutes 12 per cent of total output. Like Canada, both the U.S. and the EU maintain market access restrictions on dairy imports. This hasn't prevented both from mounting long-standing attacks on Canada's dairy import restrictions through trade challenges at the WTO and in CUSMA. They have been successful at marginally increasing access through revised TRQs. Every piece of imported cheese Canadians enjoy today has eked its way into our market through TRQ trade concessions under the supply management system. With some of our trading partners seeking to dismantle the Canadian system altogether, it's a miracle it has survived so far. As B.C. trade representative, I accompanied provincial ministers and delegations of B.C. farm leaders on several missions to Geneva and Brussels to plead the case for supply management import controls. I was struck by the fact that under a rich veil of diplomatic niceties, we found no allies to support our position. Sympathy yes, but support no. With a U.S. president known to show little respect for American laws, it's most unlikely that a simple Canadian law like Bill C-202 will dampen his quest to dismantle the supply management system. In what would certainly be considered a controversial move, Canada could introduce a quota buyback program to retire some domestic producers from the system. Some of this quota should be reserved for young farmers seeking to enter the system. Another share could be reallocated to U.S imports by increasing the low or tariff-free portion of TRQs allocated to U.S dairy products. This type of arrangement paved the way for an increase in European cheese imports to Canada — a key breakthrough in the negotiation of the Canada Europe Trade Agreement in 2017. A similar approach could get Canada's stalled bilateral trade talks with the U.K. back on track. With new Canadian legislation in place and just two weeks to go before the Canada-U.S. trade deal deadline, I expect we will be hearing a lot about Canada's supply management system. In the meantime, protected or not, our sacred cows remain squarely in Trump's trade bull's-eye. Stuart Culbertson is a former deputy minister in the B.C. government. He served as B.C. trade representative during the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement talks and previously worked as a trade policy specialist with the European Union and as secretary of the Canadian Importers Association's cheese import committee.
Cision Canada
2 hours ago
- Cision Canada
xTool Unveils F2 Ultra: The World's First AI-Powered MOPA Dual Laser for Creative and Commercial Empowerment Français
SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 9, 2025 /CNW/ -- xTool, a prominent leader in the laser cutter and engraver industry, has launched the F2 Ultra, the world's first 60w MOPA and 40w diode dual-laser engraver. Engineered to transform creative production for small businesses and independent makers, F2 Ultra integrates AI-driven features that streamline design workflows and boost efficiency while delivering unmatched material compatibility, safety, and speed. Central to F2 Ultra is the MOPA (Master Oscillator Power Amplifier) laser technology, offering greater flexibility, precision, and material compatibility than traditional fiber lasers. With adjustable pulse width and frequency, the MOPA laser enables deep engraving and 3D embossing on various materials, along with intricate color engraving on metal that reveals over 100 vibrant tones. Paired with the diode laser, this dual-laser setup truly embodies the "one machine does it all" concept, enabling users to cut and engrave on nearly all materials, thereby enhancing creative possibilities and product offerings. F2 Ultra is also the first AI-enhanced MOPA laser system, streamlining laser workflows for users of all skill levels. With a single click, the AI automatically identifies materials and applies optimal settings. The integrated AI Design feature converts basic sketches into ready-to-engrave files with 3D previews. Its dual 48MP cameras, dubbed "AI Eyes," deliver real-time precision with 0.2mm accuracy, simplifying alignment and saving materials. With speeds of up to 15,000mm/s, F2 Ultra significantly reduces production time. A working area 115% larger than that of typical MOPA lasers supports larger objects and facilitates batch processing. Features like Smart Fill and Auto Streamline Conveyor enhance efficiency, making it ideal for businesses scaling production without sacrificing quality or precision. Designed with safety in mind, F2 Ultra features a fully enclosed body with enhanced casing and protective layers to prevent laser leakage. The sealed design contains fumes and reduces disruptions, making the system ideal for settings such as studios, fairs, and public retail environments. As industries shift toward integrated solutions that emphasize user experience and operational excellence, the xTool F2 Ultra stands out at the intersection of innovation and practicality, embodying the brand's mission to "turn creativity into reality." It offers limitless applications, from personalized gifts at craft fairs to professional-grade customizations in maker spaces, all while prioritizing safety at every step of the creative process.
