Canada

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. has moved a step closer to getting a default waived and loosening restrictions on its loan pact after offering more money to its lenders, according to people with knowledge of the matter, Bloomberg News reported. To win creditors over, the company is boosting the interest on its term loans by one percentage-point, with the new rate set to stay in place for at least a year, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information isn’t public.

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc's directors and key officers have received a cease-trade order by the securities regulator in the Canadian province of Quebec, on the company's request, Valeant said on Thursday, Reuters reported. In a separate statement, the Autorité Des Marches Financiers (AMF) said the order against trading shares takes effect Thursday and is in place for 15 days. Included in the order are Chief Executive Mike Pearson, Chief Financial Officer Robert Rosiello and board member Bill Ackman.

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. said Wednesday it was seeking more room from lenders to stave off a potential default. But stock investors were unnerved, as Valeant inched back from earlier assurances about its ability to hit financial targets required by its lenders, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Canadian drug company, struggling in recent months with questions over its accounting and business practices, said it had begun seeking a deal with lenders to give it more time to file its delayed 10-K annual report.

Canadian gold miner Rubicon Minerals Corp said there was significant doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern after it breached a loan covenant, Reuters reported. Rubicon, which suffered a major setback in January when it had to cut the gold reserve estimate for its Phoenix mine in Ontario by 86 percent, said it continues to evaluate strategic options and that it was in talks with lenders.

Canadian junior oil and gas producer Terra Energy Corp said it shut down production, ceased operations and announced the resignation of directors and officers on Monday, after its lender, Canadian Western Bank, demanded full repayment of its debt, Reuters reported. Terra, which was producing around 3,600 barrels of oil equivalent per day from its operations in western Alberta and north-eastern British Columbia, said that at current low oil prices the cost of operating was more than its revenue.

Valeant Pharmaceuticals cut its 2016 revenue forecast by about 12 per cent on Tuesday and said a delay in filing its annual report could pose a debt default risk, causing its shares to plunge, the Irish Times reported. The Canadian drugmaker, the target of US investigations into its business and accounting practices, reiterated that it would put off filing its annual report with US regulators but for the first time raised the spectre of a default.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Herman Wilton-Siegel has handed down a long-awaited ruling in the bankruptcy proceedings surrounding U.S. Steel Canada, Canadian Manufacturing reported. The court battle centred on more than $2 billion in loans paid by Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel to its then subsidiary USS Canada following the Stelco acquisition in 2007. The government of Ontario and the United Steelworkers union have maintained the funds were extended to USS’s Canadian operation as “equity” rather than debt, while USS has said it expected the funds to be repaid.

Goodwill Industries of Toronto, Eastern, Central and Northern Ontario says it's seeking bankruptcy protection as it tries to restructure, CTV News reported on a Canadian Press story. CEO Keiko Nakamura said Monday in a statement the Goodwill has filed an assignment under Canada's Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. The statement says the purpose of the filing is to preserve Goodwill's assets for its principal creditors, who are collectively the former employees of the corporation.

Junior oilsands developer Laricina Energy has been granted a final court order from the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta, exiting from protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (Canada), Oilweek reported. The company has paid in full all accounts in respect of its CCAA proceedings and has set aside a reserve of $1.8 million to pay the remaining unpaid proven claims and outstanding disputed claim. Resolution of the disputed claim will continue on a timetable set by the parties or the court.

I refer, of course, to the 2007 takeover of Stelco, just one of a spree of foreign takeovers that substantially contributed to a diminishment of Ontario’s profile on the world economic stage, the Toronto Star reported. (Think Falconbridge, Inco, Rio Algom.) At the height of the foreign takeover mania, the federal government of the day offered repeated assurances that the Investment Canada Act provided all the protections necessary to ensure such transactions would be of “net benefit” to Canada. In remaking Stelco into U.S.