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.

The world is suddenly paying attention to Home Capital Group Inc., the tiny Canadian mortgage lender that’s on the ropes. The stock is plunging, it faces a run on deposits and regulators are probing management’s disclosure of fraudulent mortgages, Bloomberg News reported. Its troubles are raising questions: Is this an isolated case of a struggling mortgage company, or early signs of cracks forming in Canada’s red-hot housing market? It started in 2014 when the company, formed 31 years ago by Gerald Soloway, failed to screen a pile of questionable mortgages brought in by outside brokers.

A Canadian court on Monday upheld a decision to grant lenders priority over environmental clean-up costs in oil-and-gas bankruptcies, raising chances disused wells from defunct companies could become a government responsibility, Reuters reported. That could further strain the government-run, industry-funded Orphan Well Association (OWA), which cleans up wells for which no party is legally responsible. The group has said it needs extra funding and upping levies for producers is an option.

An Ontario appeal court has rejected an attempt by United Steelworkers Local 2724 to overturn two orders made by Justice Frank Newbould in the Essar Steel Algoma restructuring proceedings, Sootoday.com reported. Local 2724, representing Essar Algoma's salaried employees, was trying to appeal decisions made by Judge Newbould on Dec. 22 and 29, 2016. On Dec. 22, Newbould had ordered that a term sheet summarizing the terms and conditions of an agreement between Essar Algoma and Cliffs Mining Co. be disclosed to the union's financial advisor, subject to a non-disclosure agreement. On Dec.

The Property and Casualty Insurance Compensation Corporation (PACICC) will participate in the federal government’s review of financial sector regulations next year, including the examination of an act that has not “really been reviewed” in more than a century, the Canadian Underwriter reported.

The worst may not be over for everyone in Canada’s oil patch even as crude prices show signs of stability, Bloomberg News reported. While producers are on firmer footing, oilfield service companies are still keeping restructuring advisers and lawyers busy as the effects of nearly three years of depressed oil prices continue to roll through one of Canada’s most important industries.

The Nova Scotia Supreme Court has granted a La Havre company an extension for filing its proposal for bankruptcy — with conditions. Kocken Energy Systems Inc. was given the full 45 days to file its proposal, the maximum allowed under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, The Chronicle Herald reported. Kocken manufactures process equipment for the oil and gas industry. In 2011, the two shareholders, William Famulak and Arthur Sager, moved manufacturing from Alberta to La Have. In 2015, Kocken acquired a plant at St. Antoine, N.B.