Canada

At least four individuals have filed whistleblower complaints with Canadian securities regulators alleging fraud at a multibillion-dollar investment firm and its publicly traded lending arm, according to people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Catalyst Capital Group Inc., one of Canada’s largest private-equity firms, is accused in the complaints of artificially inflating the value of some of its assets and deceiving borrowers about the terms of loans it made, The Wall Street Journal reported.

A battle over whether energy-company creditors should help pay for cleaning up thousands of abandoned oil wells in Canada may be heading to the country’s Supreme Court, Bloomberg News reported. At the center of the dispute is Redwater Energy Corp., a small publicly traded oil producer in Alberta that filed for bankruptcy in late 2015. The receiver that’s liquidating the company argues it should be able to sell its best wells and leave the worst behind for an energy industry-funded group to clean up.

Sears Canada Inc was granted court approval on Thursday to proceed with a sale process that would allow the retailer to consider a range of potential deals, according to court documents. A report by the court-appointed monitor FTI Consulting posted on its website on Wednesday said that more than 20 parties have signed non-disclosure agreements with Sears Canada as part of the planned sale process, Reuters reported.

Sears Canada Inc majority shareholders including Edward Lampert, ESL Investments Inc and Fairholme Capital Management LLC are seeking access to internal documents related to its restructuring, according to a notice of motion posted on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The court motion, which will be made on Thursday in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, comes as the court-appointed monitor FTI Consulting said more than 20 parties have signed non-disclosure agreements with Sears Canada. The retailer was still negotiating non-disclosure agreements with ESL and Fairholme.

Eddie Lampert’s efforts to keep his crumbling Sears Holdings Corp. empire out of bankruptcy court may be running out of time. Sears Canada Inc., which operates more than 200 stores, has hired advisers and is preparing to file for bankruptcy protection in Canada, according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported. Sears Canada is expected to seek protection from creditors under Canada’s Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, the equivalent of chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. A Sears Canada spokesman couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Mr.

Canadian mortgage growth is slowing as the country’s policy makers step up efforts to cool overheated housing markets in Vancouver and Toronto. With four of Canada’s biggest banks reporting second-quarter results, the trend shows decelerating growth in home loan portfolios and, in some cases, shrinkage, Bloomberg News reported. It’s a welcome sign for officials struggling to curb house prices in two of the nation’s largest cities.

Canada’s biggest banks are this week set to post returns that again put their US peers in the shade, even as rapidly rising house prices and consumer debt levels have raised concerns about potential threats to financial stability north of the border, the Financial Times reported. The big five, which together control almost C$4.5tn worth of assets, will seek to reassure investors that Canada’s banking system remains in good health when they post quarterly net income forecast to be between 5 and 30 per cent higher than a year ago.

The oil industry in Canada's resource-rich Alberta will be on the hook for a C$235 million ($172.7 million) government loan to clean up a rising number of oil wells abandoned by owners who have gone bankrupt, the province said on Thursday, Reuters reported. The loan, repayable over 10 years, will go to the government-run, industry-funded Orphan Well Association (OWA), which cleans up wells for which no party is legally responsible, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said at a news conference.

Moody’s downgrade of Canada’s biggest banks beat down assets in a market already rattled by woes of mortgage lender Home Capital Group Inc, Bloomberg News reported. Yet analysts say this isn’t evidence of an impending crisis. “The weatherman just warned us about a storm that already came and went,” said Derek Holt, head of capital markets economics at Scotiabank.

Canada's Hudson's Bay Co has hired a debt restructuring adviser to review potential options for combining its business with debt-laden U.S. department store operator Neiman Marcus Group, according to people familiar with the matter. The move is the clearest indication yet that Neiman Marcus' $4.7 billion debt pile poses significant challenges to a merger between Hudson's Bay, owner of the Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue retail chains, and private equity-owned Neiman Marcus, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.