Canadians wager on CEO firings

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[b]Canadians wager on CEO firings[/b]
[font=\"Arial\"][i]Tired of waiting for Nortel Networks to restate its results, or unhappy with Royal Bank of Canada's money-losing forays into the U.S. market?[/i]

Canadian investors unsatisfied with the way their largest companies are being run can now bet money that the CEOs will be fired in the next five months.

Betfair, a British online wagering service, launched a Canadian CEO market on Wednesday, in which users will be able to gamble on whether 10 corporate leaders will be able to keep their jobs past April 30, 2005.

In addition to William Owens, chief of telecom equipment giant Nortel, and Royal Bank's Gord Nixon, gamblers can bet on the chances that Stelco CEO Courtney Pratt won't keep his job long enough to see the steelmaker exit creditor protection.

Or they can gamble that Paul Tellier's efforts to restructure Bombardier will allow him to stay at the helm of the train and plane manufacturer.

Under the rules of Internet betting exchanges like Betfair, gamblers bet against each other rather than against a central bookmaker.

Jordan Ferguson, Betfair's head of International sales, said it chose those particular CEOs so as to create a volatile market.

"Canada's the first time we've done this because Canada's one of the market's where there's an enormous amount of interest in investment and in publicly traded companies," he said, adding that the format might be tried in other countries if it is successful.

Also on the list are Air Canada's Robert Milton, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce's John Hunkin, Dan O'Neill of brewer Molson, Stephen Snyder of power generator TransAlta, John Rogers of health sciences firm MDS, and Arthur Millholland of Oilexco, a small oil and gas explorer.

All trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange, Canada's largest equity market, except for Oilexco, which trades on the smaller TSX Venture Exchange.
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