Canada

As companies try to hasten the restructuring process, they're negotiating deals with creditors before they reach the courts, an analysis by the Globe and Mail has found. Restructuring experts say this carefully crafted strategy is increasingly the norm as companies attempt to prenegotiate agreements with most of their major creditors, then file under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act in Canada or Chapter 11 in the United States just long enough to have a court impose terms on any unwilling lenders.

The Canadian Auto Workers said it reached a tentative agreement with General Motors Corp. as part of the automaker’s restructuring, Bloomberg reported. The union said it will provide details in a press conference at noon local time in Toronto. General Motors, surviving on $13.4 billion in U.S. aid, was working with the union on ways to find savings by month’s end as governments in the U.S. and Canada study aid plans. General Motors and Chrysler LLC have been given until March 31 to present viability plans to the U.S.

The collapse of Allen Stanford's global financial services empire has affected 225 Canadians who placed a total of US$308 million in one of Mr. Stanford's key holdings, Stanford International Bank, the Globe and Mail reported. Houston-based Stanford Financial Group and its subsidiaries had more than 30,000 clients, and offices around the world, including one in Montreal. Regulators in Canada and several countries have shut down the local affiliates and the company has been put into receivership. Antigua-based Stanford International Bank, or SIB, was central to the Stanford Group.

A New York private-equity group, KPS Capital Partners LP, agreed to buy the Irish and U.K. operations of Waterford Wedgwood PLC, the historic ceramics-and-crystal maker that was placed in a form of bankruptcy in January, The Wall Street Journal reported. The deal was announced by accounting firm Deloitte LLP, which has been trying to sell the company since it was placed in administration Jan. 5 after years of heavy losses under its former chairman and major shareholder, Irish businessman Sir Anthony O'Reilly.

Telecom equipment company Nortel Networks Corp. plans to cut its work force by 3,200 jobs worldwide, or more than 10 percent of its global work force, in an effort to restructure its operations while under court protection, the Associated Press reported. The Canada-based telecom equipment maker said Wednesday the new round of job cuts will be made over the next several months. The reduction is on top of 1,800 job cuts already announced. Nortel filed for creditor protection Jan. 14 in Canada and the United States.

The Canadian government has hit Chrysler Canada with a tax-related C$500 million ($400 million) lien that could complicate negotiations for the automaker as it seeks government aid, the Globe and Mail newspaper said on Thursday. The paper, citing federal court documents, said the Canada Revenue Agency notified Chrysler Canada in 2002 that it owed "substantial increases" in taxes for three years starting in 1996.

Precision Nuclear Inc. and its sister company Precision Metal Works Ltd., both owned by Fredericton-area businessman David Rioux, were placed under the receivership of Green Hunt Wedlake Inc., the New Brunswick Business Journal reported. The Halifax-based bankruptcy trustees and insolvency consultants were appointed by the Court of Queen's Bench for 30 days while Rioux, the president, chief executive and sole shareholder of the companies, tries to come up with a reorganization plan that would meet the approval of its creditors.

General Motors Co. is trying to line up $6 billion in financial support from five governments in addition to the U.S. federal aid outlined in its restructuring plan late Tuesday, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The U.S. automaker said it is in talks with authorities in Germany, the U.K., Sweden, Canada and Thailand to secure the aid by March 31, in line with a U.S. government deadline for continuing and extending support to keep the company out of bankruptcy protection.

Air Canada, the country's biggest airline, could be forced to file for bankruptcy protection if it does not secure additional financing and succeed in renegotiating covenants in credit card agreements, UBS analyst Fadi Chamoun said. Covenants in credit card agreements could tighten further in the second quarter and result in the airline being required to maintain higher cash deposits, said Chamoun, who downgraded Air Canada shares to "sell" from "neutral". He also cut his target price for its shares to C$1 from C$1.50.

The pressure on Network Ten's majority owner, CanWest, is not letting up, and analysts are raising the spectre of bankruptcy for the cash-strapped media group, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. The company, controlled by the Asper family, early this week began looking for buyers for five of its free-to-air television stations in Canada as it is seeking to avert breaching its lending covenants this quarter.