Canada

Postmedia Networks Corp. reported a profit in its latest quarter, boosted by a debt restructuring negotiated by the struggling media company and its major creditors, however revenue fell nearly 15 per cent, The Globe and Mail reported. The Toronto-based owner of the National Post and other major Canadian newspapers says it earned $17.8-million or 31 cents per share for the quarter ended Nov. 30. That compared with a loss of $4.2-million or two cents per share a year ago.

Canadian apparel maker Gildan Activewear Inc said it had won a bankruptcy auction to buy U.S. fashion retailer American Apparel for about $88 million in cash. The deal is subject to approval from a bankruptcy court on Thursday, the company said. Under the deal, Gildan will acquire the intellectual property rights related to the American Apparel brand and certain manufacturing equipment. The company , however, will not buy any of the 110 American Apparel retail stores.

The federal government is projecting decades of deficits as a new Finance Canada report shows Ottawa’s long-term finances have deteriorated considerably over the past two years, The Globe and Mail reported. The government’s latest long-term fiscal forecast adds new context to the federal government’s reluctance to boost provincial health transfers. The decades of surpluses projected by Ottawa just two years ago have now shifted to decades of annual deficits that will run until 2050.

Canadians are walking a tightrope between bulking up on their savings but also on their debts, The Globe and Mail reported. The key measure of consumer debt burden touched a new high in the third quarter. The ratio of debt to disposable income rose to 166.9 per cent from a revised 166.4 per cent in the second quarter, according to Statistics Canada’s national balance sheet report released on Wednesday. The government agency said this amounted to households owing $1.67 in debt for every dollar of disposable income at the end of the third quarter.

Southern Ontario steelmaker Stelco is seeking court approval to move forward with its restructuring following an agreement with Bedrock Industries, CTV News reported on a Canadian Press story. Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa said in a statement Friday that Bedrock's proposal would mean that operations at the Hamilton and Lake Erie facilities would continue and 2,100 jobs would be preserved.

Judges in Canada and the U.S. on Thursday approved materials explaining Nortel Networks Corp.’s creditor-repayment plan, inaugurating the beginning of the end of one of the priciest bankruptcies on record, The Wall Street Journal reported. Thursday’s court hearings launched the formal process of polling creditors on the bankruptcy plans that will end Nortel’s corporate life after eight years in bankruptcy, and divide the $7.3 billion in proceeds from its global going-out-of-business sale.

After struggling to pay its debts while oil prices tumbled, Calgary’s Lightstream Resources Ltd. emerged from a “painful” restructuring with a $1.35-billion deal that will clear the way for new production in 2017, the company says, The Calgary Herald reported. Two New York-based debt holders, private equity firm Apollo Global Management and credit-focused investor GSO Capital Partners, will own Lightstream following the deal, which includes swapping their debt for equity. The transaction, expected to close Dec.

Elevated house prices and record-high debt levels are contributing to worries about Canada’s future economic growth, the head of the country’s national housing agency says, The Wall Street Journal reported. Speaking at the Bank of England on Friday, Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. President Evan Siddall said high house prices in the cities of Vancouver and Toronto have spread to other markets. At the same time, household indebtedness has grown and the concentration of Canadians’ net worth in real estate is near historic highs.

A severe and prolonged economic depression could result in a 25% decline in Canadian house prices by 2021, Canada’s national housing agency says, The Wall Street Journal reported. The estimate was included in a report on stress testing conducted by the Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation and released publicly on Thursday. While the agency’s base case scenario is for Canadian house prices to rise about 9.0% between 2017 and 2021, it said several extreme situations could result in price declines over the same period.

The Ontario government is planning a major intervention in Essar Steel Algoma's recovery from insolvency, the Sault Ste. Marie Economic Development Corp. learned today. News of the funding was disclosed this afternoon at a meeting of the EDC board by James Caicco, a local director of Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. (NOHFC), the provincial government's crown corporation and development agency. "We're working on a major, major funding from NOHFC to help in the restructuring," Caicco said.