Canada

A second Calgary junior oilsands producer has been granted court protection from creditors as low oil prices and investor disinterest prevent recharging capital resources, The Calgary Herald reported. In a news release on its website, private Laricina Energy Ltd. reported that it has been granted Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act protection by the Court of Queen’s Bench. PricewaterhouseCoopers has been appointed monitor.

Best Buy Canada, a unit of Best Buy Co., said it will close 66 of its Future Shop electronics stores, or roughly half, while firing 1,500 full- and part-time workers and taking a restructuring charge of as much as $280 million, Bloomberg News reported. Best Buy said in a statement released Saturday that the cost of the consolidation will reduce earnings in its 2016 fiscal year by as much as 20 cents a share. The company, which has pushed to cut costs in its U.S. operations, said it doesn’t expect the move to affect earnings in later years.

The debt burden among Canadians has hit a fresh record high as nagging household imbalances begin to feel the pinch of a new problem: Slower income growth, The Globe and Mail reported. Debt imbalances are measured chiefly by the ratio of total household credit-market debt (mortgages, other loans and credit cards) to disposable income, and that ratio hit 163.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year, up slightly from the previous record 162.7 per cent in the third quarter, Statistics Canada reported Thursday.

Steel pensioners from Hamilton are going to court to save a key protection for retirees whose employers go bankrupt. They're rallying behind a little-known legal principle in Ontario that says amounts owed to a pension plan by a bankrupt employer become claims ranking ahead of secured creditors against some assets. A recent Superior Court decision threatens this so-called deemed trust principle by holding the trust is only created if the employer winds up its pension plans before going bankrupt.

Target Canada suppliers have a long list of questions they want the insolvent retailer to answer — 61 in all. The questions centre around the timing of the insolvency, declared Jan. 15, the Toronto Star reported. Target is in the process of liquidating all 133 stores across Canada. “When did Target Canada and Target Corporation first begin considering closing down its Canadian stores and seeking insolvency protection,” reads one of the questions. Ontario Superior Court justice Geoffrey Morawetz ruled on Feb. 19 that suppliers had until Mar.

Financial institutions are at the epicentre of the financial storm in the Caribbean. Take the case of Sagicor Financial Corp., a leading regional life insurer, based in Barbados. Because the country’s sovereign debt has been downgraded several times, Sagicor’s corporate debt rating has also suffered. In January, the company abruptly announced it was relocating its head office outside of Barbados, shocking the island’s 290,000 citizens. Canadian lenders have it even worse. Our banks are often praised for sidestepping the U.S.

The Canadian subsidiary of embattled for-profit education company Corinthian Colleges Inc. has filed for bankruptcy under Canada’s insolvency law after an Ontario education regulator took action against the company’s 14 Canadian campuses, The Wall Street Journal reported. Everest Colleges Canada Inc. filed for an assignment under the Bankruptcy Insolvency Act on Friday, which is Canada’s bankruptcy law. Duff Phelps Canada Restructuring Inc. will administer the case as trustee, according to an announcement.

Cash-strapped private oilsands producer Laricina Energy Ltd. is shutting down its Germain commercial demonstration project and will halt planning on its joint-venture Saleski project as its fruitless search for investment dollars enters its fourth month, the Calgary Herald reported. “This action reflects the company’s continuing efforts to implement cost controls towards maintaining its financial position to protect the long-term value of its assets in this difficult commodity and capital markets environment,” Laricina said in a news release on its website Monday.

Struggling telecom startup Mobilicity has filed an application to participate in the upcoming federal spectrum auction, but the company’s precarious financial condition could preclude it from facing off with rival Wind Mobile Corp. for the coveted licences, the Financial Post reported. Mobilicity, which has been operating under court-supervised creditor protection since September 2013, submitted a refundable deposit after scrambling to obtain $65-million in debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing days before Industry Canada’s Jan.

Palliser Oil & Gas is seeking creditor protection under the CCAA act, it said yesterday, as the junior oil and gas company failed to repay its oustanding debts. The company, in a statement released after market close Monday, said its board has determined that it is in the best interests of shareholders to file for creditor protection on February 12 under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCCAA). The decision comes after Palliser received a notice from lender National Bank of Canada that the company's $40 million in debt must be repaid in full by February 6.