Bank of Montreal, Kingsway, Scotiabank: Canada Equity Preview

By John Kipphoff

Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The following companies may have unusual price changes in Canadian trading tomorrow. Stock symbols are in parentheses, and share prices are from the previous close.

The Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index fell 1.2 percent to 13,288.96.

Bank of Montreal (BMO CN): Canada's fourth-largest lender by assets is scheduled to report fiscal third-quarter earnings. The bank may post earnings of C$1.20 a share excluding one-time items, the average estimate of 12 analysts in a Bloomberg survey. The shares fell 2 percent to C$44.06.

Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS CN): Canada's third-biggest bank may report third-quarter profit of C$1.03 a share before one- time items, the average estimate of five analysts polled by Bloomberg. Scotiabank shares fell 2 percent to C$47.64.

Kingsway Financial Services Inc. (KFS CN): The insurance company whose shares have more than halved in value in a year agreed to sell its York Fire & Casualty Insurance Co. for C$95 ($90.4 million) to La Capitale General Insurance Inc., to concentrate on freight trucks and high-risk drivers.

Kingsway expects to make a profit of about C$50 million before taxes on the transaction and proceeds will be used to pay off short-term debt, the Toronto-based company said in a statement distributed by PRNEwsWire. The shares fell 0.5 percent to C$8.37 before being halted.

To contact the reporter on this story: John Kipphoff in Toronto at jkipphoff@bloomberg.net.