Canada

The CEO of Cameco Corp. says the decision by a Japanese utility to terminate a uranium-supply contract worth about $1.3-billion in revenue from now through 2028 came “out of the blue.” Tim Gitzel said Tokyo Electric Power Co. sent a notice on Jan. 24 saying it wanted to terminate the long-term contract signed in 2009 and would not accept delivery of a shipment due Wednesday, Reuters reported. He said Tepco confirmed the notice on Tuesday despite Cameco’s interim attempts to discuss remedies for the situation. “We were very surprised to get that notice,” Mr.

Nortel Networks Corp. won approval to start distributing $7.3 billion to creditors, a major step in the long-running demise of the telecommunications company, The Wall Street Journal reported. Judges in Canada and the U.S. on Tuesday cleared Nortel to open up the lockbox containing $7.3 billion raised by selling its businesses and patents in bankruptcy. While most Canadian creditors will collect less than half of what they are owed under the plan, bondholders with claims against both Nortel in Canada and its U.S. unit expect to recover 95% or more of what they’re owed.

Postmedia Networks Corp. reported a profit in its latest quarter, boosted by a debt restructuring negotiated by the struggling media company and its major creditors, however revenue fell nearly 15 per cent, The Globe and Mail reported. The Toronto-based owner of the National Post and other major Canadian newspapers says it earned $17.8-million or 31 cents per share for the quarter ended Nov. 30. That compared with a loss of $4.2-million or two cents per share a year ago.

Canadian apparel maker Gildan Activewear Inc said it had won a bankruptcy auction to buy U.S. fashion retailer American Apparel for about $88 million in cash. The deal is subject to approval from a bankruptcy court on Thursday, the company said. Under the deal, Gildan will acquire the intellectual property rights related to the American Apparel brand and certain manufacturing equipment. The company , however, will not buy any of the 110 American Apparel retail stores.

The federal government is projecting decades of deficits as a new Finance Canada report shows Ottawa’s long-term finances have deteriorated considerably over the past two years, The Globe and Mail reported. The government’s latest long-term fiscal forecast adds new context to the federal government’s reluctance to boost provincial health transfers. The decades of surpluses projected by Ottawa just two years ago have now shifted to decades of annual deficits that will run until 2050.

Canadians are walking a tightrope between bulking up on their savings but also on their debts, The Globe and Mail reported. The key measure of consumer debt burden touched a new high in the third quarter. The ratio of debt to disposable income rose to 166.9 per cent from a revised 166.4 per cent in the second quarter, according to Statistics Canada’s national balance sheet report released on Wednesday. The government agency said this amounted to households owing $1.67 in debt for every dollar of disposable income at the end of the third quarter.

Southern Ontario steelmaker Stelco is seeking court approval to move forward with its restructuring following an agreement with Bedrock Industries, CTV News reported on a Canadian Press story. Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa said in a statement Friday that Bedrock's proposal would mean that operations at the Hamilton and Lake Erie facilities would continue and 2,100 jobs would be preserved.

Judges in Canada and the U.S. on Thursday approved materials explaining Nortel Networks Corp.’s creditor-repayment plan, inaugurating the beginning of the end of one of the priciest bankruptcies on record, The Wall Street Journal reported. Thursday’s court hearings launched the formal process of polling creditors on the bankruptcy plans that will end Nortel’s corporate life after eight years in bankruptcy, and divide the $7.3 billion in proceeds from its global going-out-of-business sale.

After struggling to pay its debts while oil prices tumbled, Calgary’s Lightstream Resources Ltd. emerged from a “painful” restructuring with a $1.35-billion deal that will clear the way for new production in 2017, the company says, The Calgary Herald reported. Two New York-based debt holders, private equity firm Apollo Global Management and credit-focused investor GSO Capital Partners, will own Lightstream following the deal, which includes swapping their debt for equity. The transaction, expected to close Dec.

Elevated house prices and record-high debt levels are contributing to worries about Canada’s future economic growth, the head of the country’s national housing agency says, The Wall Street Journal reported. Speaking at the Bank of England on Friday, Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. President Evan Siddall said high house prices in the cities of Vancouver and Toronto have spread to other markets. At the same time, household indebtedness has grown and the concentration of Canadians’ net worth in real estate is near historic highs.