Canadian oil and gas producer Calvalley Petroleum Inc said on Thursday it will liquidate and restructure due to the political crisis in Yemen, where it has almost all of its operations, Reuters reported. The Calgary-based junior has a 50 percent working interest in a block in Yemen's Sayun-Masila Basin, producing 3,700 barrels per day gross, but was forced to shut down production on Tuesday as conflict in the Middle Eastern country escalated. The block is owned by the Yemeni government.

Target Corp's Canadian unit said it would close the last of its 133 retail stores on April 12. The No. 2 U.S. discount chain said in January that it would exit Canada after struggling since its March 2013 launch, resulting in 17,000 employees losing their jobs and triggering a $5.1 billion quarterly charge. Target Canada's three distribution centers and Mississauga headquarters have been closed, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. "The court-approved real estate sales process is underway and is expected to be completed by the end of June 2015," Target Canada CEO Aaron Alt said.

Exall Energy, a tiny Calgary-based oil and gas company, went into receivership last week, sunk under the weight of its $34 million in bank debt, CBC.ca reported. But, the company failed to inform shareholders, or the Alberta Securities Commission, which issued a cease trade order only on March 30. "The cease trade order was issued after ASC staff determined that Exall Energy failed to disclose, in accordance with Alberta securities laws, that it had entered into receivership and that its board of directors had resigned," the ASC said in a release.

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.