This is the week’s one genuinely portable mechanic. Malone changed what class of shares he held without selling anything and without triggering tax. Canada has the direct analogue: under s.86 of the Income Tax Act a shareholder can exchange shares of one class for shares of another in a reorganisation of capital on a tax-deferred rollover, and s.85 does the same for a transfer into a corporation.

The owner-manager version is the estate freeze: exchange your common shares for fixed-value preferred shares that lock in today’s value, then issue new growth common shares to a family trust. Future appreciation accrues to the trust — which is where the LCGE multiplication and the succession planning live. The mechanism is identical in shape to what Liberty did: restructure the share classes, do not sell.

It does not need billions. It needs a private corporation with value in it and growth ahead of it — and it is materially cheaper and cleaner to do before the value accrues than after.