Insolvent Laurentian has cleared a critical obstacle to move forward with its plan to become financially stable, after a judge on Sunday agreed to allow the Sudbury, Ont., university to continue to operate while protected from creditors until Aug. 31, CBC News reported. Justice Geoffrey Morawetz of Ontario Superior Court has also given the university the go-ahead to cut ties with three federated universities, which will qualify Laurentian for a $10-million loan. Morawetz's decisions following hearings last week come at the expense of the University of Sudbury, Thorneloe and Huntington.
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Canada
The Calgary-based GYMVMT fitness chain will close multiple locations as part of a restructuring effort aimed at saving the business in the face of COVID-19 restrictions, the Calgary Herald reported. International Fitness Holdings Inc. — which operates 21 fitness centers in Calgary and Edmonton under the names GYMVMT, HER GYMVMT, Bankers Hall Club and ClubFit — filed a notice of intention last week to file a proposal under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.
If it makes you feel better to say Canada’s housing market is a bubble, go ahead and say it. Everyone else has, The Globe and Mail reported. Ten years ago, The Economist magazine concluded Canadian real estate was grossly overvalued. Nine years ago, Merrill Lynch declared Canadian housing was afflicted by “overvaluation, speculation and oversupply.” Seven years ago, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the International Monetary Fund began sounding sirens about the dysfunctional state of Canadian housing.
The national average selling price for existing homes last month was about 32 percent higher than in March 2020, and owners in communities across Canada are feeling the benefits, The Globe and Mail reported. Average prices in Chilliwack, B.C., Bancroft, Ont., and Yarmouth, N.S., were at least $100,000 higher than a year earlier, right in line with big cities such as Vancouver. By handing owners these lottery-like gains in equity, the housing market has validated the almost religious belief of Canadians that owning a house is the foundation of financial success.
The three-month trial of a lawsuit against Toronto-Dominion Bank, in which the liquidators of the collapsed Antigua bank of former Texas financier Robert Allen Stanford are seeking $4.5 billion in damages, is expected to end on Wednesday, Reuters reported. A written judgment from the court is expected in a few months. In closing arguments at the Ontario Superior Court, lawyers for the court-appointed joint liquidators of Stanford International Bank (SIB) alleged negligence and "knowing assistance" by TD in providing a correspondent banking account that Stanford used to perpetuate fraud.
Apartment building owners in major Canadian cities are quietly selling billions of dollars worth of properties at premium valuations, despite the pandemic, with pension funds, private equity firms and other investors desperate to swallow large portfolios that rarely hit the market, The Globe and Mail reported.
The Bank of Canada took the biggest step yet by a major economy to reduce emergency levels of monetary stimulus as it hailed a stronger-than-expected recovery from the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. Policy makers led by Governor Tiff Macklem said Wednesday they would scale back their purchases of government debt by a quarter to C$3 billion ($2.4 billion) and accelerate the timetable for a possible interest-rate increase. The upbeat turn toward plotting a return to more normal policy has been resisted by counterparts elsewhere, including the U.S. Federal Reserve.
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Spartan Bioscience, which filed for bankruptcy protection on April 5, plans to start accepting letters of intent from prospective buyers or investors interested in restructuring the insolvent firm until May 17, The Logic reported. It will select two bids—one winning bid and one backup—from a short list of qualified bidders, with plans to have a transaction complete by the end of June. The Ontario Superior Court first has to approve the process. The Ottawa-based company is seeking protection from creditors, after spending heavily on developing a COVID-19 rapid test.
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Canadian National Railway on Tuesday offered to buy Kansas City Southern for $33.7 billion, topping a $29 billion bid put forward last month by a rival railroad operator, Canadian Pacific, the New York Times reported. The competing offers underline the riches expected to come from trade flows after the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement was passed into law last year. A merger with either suitor would create a railroad line that stretches from Canada to Mexico.
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The Ontario government moved to grant independence to a medical school and a francophone university in Northern Ontario on Thursday, just days after more than 100 faculty positions and nearly 70 programs were eliminated at Laurentian University, the Globe and Mail reported. One of the universities currently involved with the medical school seemed taken by surprise, and said it was not consulted. The Progressive Conservative government introduced legislation to make the Northern Ontario School of Medicine and Hearst University independent, stand-alone, degree-granting universities.
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