Canada

Just a year after its stock rocketed to an all-time high, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. looks like an entirely different company, The Wall Street Journal reported. About $80 billion of the Canadian drugmaker’s market value has been erased, as has its business model of acquiring drugs and raising their prices. Its former chief executive, Michael Pearson, has departed in favor of Joseph Papa.

Canada’s annual inflation rate rose in June, fueled by higher car and electricity prices, and increased costs associated with housing, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The all-items consumer-price index in June rose 1.5 percent from a year earlier, Statistics Canada said Friday, matching the previous month’s advance. June’s annual core-inflation rate—which excludes volatile components such as some food and energy prices—increased 2.1 percent. The latest reading marks the 21st time in a 24-month period that core consumer prices rose by 2 percent or more.

Low interest rates around the world are fueling a familiar threat of housing bubbles, and central bankers in a number of key economies feel powerless to stop them, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The problem is being acutely felt in Canada, where home prices are soaring even as the country’s energy- and mining-dependent economy slows. Sweden and Australia are dealing with similar surges in the value of homes, leading officials in all three countries to worry about the risk of a destabilizing bust.

Incensed Hamilton steelworkers are calling for a public inquiry into U.S. Steel Canada's bankruptcy protection process, CBC.ca reported. This is the latest move in a long fight the union has spearheaded while U.S. Steel Canada searches for a buyer. "Our retirees deserve to live in dignity and stop having to worry whether what they earned will be swindled from them," United Steelworkers 1005 president Gary Howe said in a statement.

Key stakeholders of Essar Steel Algoma Inc. are pursuing a multi-pronged effort to block the purchase of the steel maker by a New York-based private equity fund and a group of lenders, The Globe and Mail reported. Holders of Essar Algoma’s junior and senior notes, the United Steelworkers (USW) union and the port of Algoma are urging the Ontario Superior Court to halt a bid by KPS Capital Partners LP, which is seeking approval by the same court of a purchase agreement it has signed with the Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.-based company.

The slumping oil market is taking a heavy toll on consumers in Canada, new federal statistics suggest, as personal insolvency filings spiked in energy-producing provinces over the past year, CBC.ca reported. Consumer insolvency filings were about five per cent higher in April 2016 than they were during the same month last year, according to a report recently released by the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy. The increase was led by huge spikes in Canada's major oil-producing provinces: Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Canada’s largest newspaper publisher is proposing a restructuring plan that would wipe out nearly half its debt and slash its annual interest payments, easing immediate financial pressure that threatened to turn the company insolvent, The Globe and Mail reported. Postmedia Network Canada Corp. outlined a planned recapitalization on Thursday that would eliminate more than $268-million (U.S.) in debt. In exchange, those creditors would receive 98 per cent of the company’s equity, all but eliminating the stake owned by existing shareholders.

The latest figures show that Alberta's insolvency rate has climbed dramatically since a year ago compared to the national rate, CBC News reported. The total number of insolvencies — bankruptcies and consumer proposals — filed by individuals increased 52.8 per cent from April 2015 to April 2016 in Alberta, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada. Across the country, the number of insolvencies was up 4.9 per cent over the same period.

Buoyed by an improving steel market, Essar Steel Algoma is now hinting it may be healthy enough to emerge from insolvency protection without a new buyer or outside investment, SooToday.com reported. In addition to reviewing bids from prospective purchasers, company officials "have been evaluating other potential restructuring alternatives, including a potential replacement [debtor-in-possession financing] and a standalone restructuring plan," Rajat Marwah, Essar Algoma’s chief financial officer, said in a sworn affidavit.

In a sign of the scramble it’s become to secure financing in Canada’s energy patch, lenders are revising one company’s debt repayment deadline daily, Bloomberg News reported. For the third straight day, Twin Butte Energy Ltd.’s bankers on Thursday agreed to extend the deadline to repay a C$85 million ($65 million) loan and ability to access its C$140 million existing revolving credit line, the company said in a statement.