Canada

A company owned by Blaine Sullivan, a well-known leader in Newfoundland and Labrador's fishing industry, has emerged as the preferred bidder for the insolvent shipyard in Harbour Grace, CBC.ca reported. The advisory firm that's monitoring the court-supervised restructuring and sales process, PricewaterhouseCoopers, revealed in documents published this week on its website that it supports a sale of the yard to Green Skiff Investments.

A group of local landlords with hundreds of rental buildings in Ontario owe more than $144 million as they grapple with a “severe liquidity crisis” that has prompted them to seek creditor protection, the Hamilton Spectator reported. Between them, Aruba Butt, Dylan Suitor and Ryan Molony have 11 related corporations drowning in debt and less than $100,000 in cash as they make their bid under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), according to court filings.

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said monetary policy can’t solve housing shortages that are driving up costs, suggesting that policymakers may consider looking beyond shelter inflation as they weigh how long to keep interest rates at current levels, Bloomberg News reported. In his first speech since holding the policy rate at 5% for a fourth consecutive meeting, Macklem said high shelter inflation — now the biggest contributor to above-target price gains — partly reflects the impact of rate increases on mortgage interest costs.

Business insolvencies jumped by more than 41 per cent in 2023, according to data released on Friday by Canada's top financial regulator, CBC.ca reported. The report from the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy showed that the total number of insolvencies — meaning those filed by both businesses and consumers — was up by 23.6 per cent last year.

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said that heightened demand for bonds is a cause of ongoing liquidity issues in the country’s funding markets, Bloomberg News reported. The Canadian Overnight Repo Rate Average, or Corra, has been stuck above the Bank of Canada’s overnight-rate target for weeks, spurring the central bank to intervene with a series of repo operations. On Wednesday, that spread widened to 7 basis points.

Thousands of Canadian small businesses face the risk of bankruptcy after the government ended pandemic-era support last month with the economy slowing at a time of high interest rates, Reuters reported. Small firms that employ fewer than 100 people are critical to the Canadian economy as they give jobs to almost two-thirds of the country's 12 million private workers. A spike in bankruptcies, which jumped 38% in the first 11 months of 2023, would weigh on economic growth, lobby groups and economists warn.

Small, loosely-regulated lenders in Canada who rode a pandemic housing boom to offer mortgages at high interest rates are now showing signs of stress as a spike in living costs pushes some homeowners toward a default, Reuters reported. Canada's C$2 trillion ($1.5 trillion) mortgage market is dominated by the "Big Six" major banks that include Royal Bank of Canada and TD Bank.

A former member of the Bank of Canada’s governing body says that he believes the central bank will start cutting interest rates in about six months if inflation pressures ease as expected, Bloomberg News reported. Policymakers will wait until they see underlying price pressures cool, even if the economy has entered a period of excess supply, former Deputy Governor Paul Beaudry said. “I wouldn’t see the potential of rate cuts until probably the July decision,” Beaudry said in an interview with Avery Shenfeld, the chief economist at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

The Canadian economy bounced back sharply in the final quarter of 2023, driven by higher goods production and shipments and stronger U.S. demand, Bloomberg News reported. Preliminary estimates say gross domestic product grew 0.3% in December, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday in Ottawa. That followed a 0.2% expansion in the previous month, exceeding forecasts for 0.1% in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Overall, the industry-based numbers point to growth of 1.2% on an annualized basis in the final three months last year, reversing a third-quarter contraction.

A Canadian landlord is sounding out potential buyers for a downtown Toronto office tower, testing a market that’s been largely frozen since interest rates started shooting up nearly two years ago, Bloomberg News reported. Dream Office Real Estate Investment Trust has hired CBRE Group Inc. and Toronto-Dominion Bank to market 438 University Ave., according to marketing documents. The company also remains open to offers for another building at 655 Bay St., which was put up for sale more than a year ago.