Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?  Perhaps, as long as you didn’t call it “Ovintiv”! Bring a bouquet of ovintiv home and I’m pretty sure you are going to get punched in the face.

That notwithstanding, as of yesterday, the artist formerly known as Encana became Ovintiv: an unpronounceable and entirely forgettable corporate brand that made the change from Pan Canadian to Encana and Cenovus look like Shakespeare himself had come up with it.  And while we are on the topic of name changes, before we go any further, I think we owe an apology to Enverus. We gave them a pretty hard time for their name change but wow, we spoke too soon. They should give their brand manager an extra bonus because Enverus as a made up word is WAY better!

I do respect that part of the logic and thinking for Encana was to “expose the company to larger pools of capital and index funds”. But Ovintiv??  Really?? I think, and maybe I’m old fashioned, renaming the company to sound like an ED medication is not going to expose Encana to “larger pools” of capital anywhere.  The truth is: the “size of the capital pool” doesn’t matter- it’s the quality of your balance sheet and the rock you give…. I mean, have… that will make people love you.

But what’s done is done and in February, with their 2019 Annual Report and the anniversary of the “….”-Newfield merger, we are going to do a deep dive into what the combined company, “…” , looks like one year on. I love me some SMOG, some financials and “…” is the template of what consolidation will look like, so it warrants a robust analysis.

However, fair warning: I’ll be damned if I’m going to call Encana by another name because to me, the new name smells fetidordoelous (if we are going to make up words, I’m going with that one).