In a board room or a trading room, businesspeople across the country must have one common asset: good negotiating skills. Whether hammering out a deal with another company or merely trying to get a new client, knowing how to negotiate is quintessential to success.

According to master negotiator Roger Dawson, author of Secrets of Power Negotiating, anyone can become a good negotiator, as long as they follow a few simple techniques:

TACTIC ONE: Never say yes to their first offer

Just a week after declaring record results for its second quarter, Western Coal is back in the news after an approach from Walter Energy, Inc, a US producer and exporter of hard coking coal for the global steel industry, about a possible “strategic business combination.”

The combination proposal contemplates a plan of arrangement transaction whereby Western shareholders would receive a mixture of cash and Walter shares valued at $11.50 per Western share.

Irish convenience foods group Greencore has announced it will merge with UK-based rival Northern Foods to form a new company called Essenta.

The 50-50 merger will create a company with sales of £1.7 billion (€2 billion) and 17,000 staff, with projected synergies of £40 million a year.

It is expected that the new company will achieve annual savings in overheads of £15 million; about £20 million in purchasing; and £5 million in tax efficiencies, with at least half of the cost benefits expected to be achieved within 12 months.

North America might be reluctant to end its love affair with gasoline, but a new Canadian venture is ready for when it inevitably happens, as Alan Swaby learns.

Lithium, apparently, is one of the most abundant minerals on earth. It has a role to play in the manufacture of ceramics and glass as a flux, in the foundry business as a casting aid, and as the core ingredient of lithium grease. But before the advent of mobile phones and laptop computers, not one in a hundred people would have heard of it.

Gold prices remain at high levels, which is great news for mining companies. But mines are fundamentally a depleting resource and as reserves decline at one mine, another must be found to take its place. Andrew Cormier at Northgate Minerals Corporation tells Andrew Pelis how his company has dealt with the forthcoming closure of its flagship operation, the Kemess South Mine in British Columbia, and is building a new cornerstone, the Young-Davidson Mine in northern Ontario.

North American Gem is setting its sights on becoming a major coal mining presence in Kentucky. The path to that door leads through a rare type of coal that is used in the production of silicon chips and solar panels, as Keith Regan learns.

As phase II of the Queenston plaza redesign nears completion, traveling between the US and Canada is set to become a whole lot easier. Gay Sutton talks to Lew Holloway, general manager of the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission, about the challenges of doing construction work at an active border crossing.

Nyrstar has long been one of the world's top zinc smelters, but found itself facing the prospect of future supply and margin pressures. That prompted a move upstream into direct zinc ore mining, a process that Keith Regan learns also involves rebuilding the trust of employees, communities, partners and regulators.

One of the world’s largest airline parts distributors is poised for take-off to a whole new level, as senior vice president of asset management and operations Alain Berube tells Pamela Derringer.

VAS Aero Services (formerly Volvo Aero Services), now has the freedom and the financial backing to become a one-stop-shop for surplus new and used airplane parts, just as the airline industry has come to recognize the value of what the company has to offer.

Some say that the last great hydrocarbon deposits lie within the Arctic Circle, and if so, it’s going to place extra demands on those extracting them, such as Technip Canada, Alan Swaby learns.