Canada

U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday formally revoked the permit needed to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline (KXL), dashing Ottawa’s hopes of salvaging the $8 billion project that the struggling Canadian crude sector has long supported, Reuters reported. The move represents another set-back for the beleaguered Canadian oil industry, in particular its energy heartland Alberta, kills thousands of jobs, and marks an early bump in Biden’s relationship with Canada, a key trading partner.

Kimmeridge Energy Management Co. said it’s prepared to nominate directors to the board of Ovintiv Inc. if the oil and gas producer fails to take the necessary steps to improve its performance and restore investor confidence, Bloomberg News reported. The private equity firm, which said it owns a 2.4% stake in Ovintiv, argues in a new 18-page presentation that the company is falling behind its peers as a result of its misguided spending, expensive acquisitions, poor governance and inadequate environmental stewardship.

As the code red lockdown continues past the holiday season, the pulse of Winnipeg small business is growing weak despite injections of government survival cash. Jonathan Alward, director of provincial affairs for the Manitoba branch of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) told the Winnipeg Sun on Tuesday that many Winnipeg small businesses are considering bankruptcy.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) was the unlucky recent buyer of a 5 percent stake in SolarWinds, the Texas-based business software maker that was compromised by a far-reaching Russian espionage attack discovered this month, the Washington Post reported. The largest shareholders in SolarWinds agreed to sell CPPIB the stake for $315 million on Dec. 7, just days before tech company’s public disclosure of the hack crushed its stock price more than 20 percent.

Canada on Thursday temporarily waived a C$844 million ($664 million) debt payment for the construction of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Muskrat Falls hydroelectric power plant, bailing out a troubled project in a province already laden with debt, Reuters. Since the announcement of the project in 2010, Canada has guaranteed a total of C$7.9 billion in debt for the project, which has faced major cost over-runs and now represents a large portion of the remote and sparsely-populated Atlantic province’s overall debt.

The United States and United Kingdom subsidiaries of Montreal-based flexible workspace company Breather have reportedly filed for separate insolvency processes, amid financial troubles and significant downsizing happening at the startup, BetaKit reported. According to The Globe and Mail, the subsidiaries filed for insolvency this week, around the same time Breather decided to pull out of hundreds of leases. The 315 office spaces Breather leased in the US and 40 in the UK will be assigned to third parties to “wind them down” and repay creditors.

Dominion Diamond Mines ULC said on Monday it reached a deal to sell its Ekati mine in Canada’s Northwest Territories to holders of its second lien notes, eight months after seeking bankruptcy protection amid a worldwide upheaval in the diamond industry, Reuters reported. Closely held Dominion, owned by the Washington Companies, filed for creditor protection in April, citing disruption to the global diamond trade caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Bank of Nova Scotia and Bank of Montreal (BMO) beat analysts’ estimates for fourth-quarter profit as they set aside less funds than expected to cover potential loan losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reported. Canadian banks have braced for higher loan losses this year and 2021 as the pandemic ravages the global economy and leads to lower household income, with a plunge in oil prices also likely to result in higher defaults in the energy sector. Both banks reporting on Tuesday, however, put aside far less than analysts had expected in the quarter to Oct.