Nortel Networks Corp. won approval to start distributing $7.3 billion to creditors, a major step in the long-running demise of the telecommunications company, The Wall Street Journal reported. Judges in Canada and the U.S. on Tuesday cleared Nortel to open up the lockbox containing $7.3 billion raised by selling its businesses and patents in bankruptcy. While most Canadian creditors will collect less than half of what they are owed under the plan, bondholders with claims against both Nortel in Canada and its U.S. unit expect to recover 95% or more of what they’re owed.

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 Bank of Mexico stepped into the exchange market Thursday for the first time in almost a year to support the peso, which hit new lows against the U.S. dollar on fears that protectionist measures by the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump could hurt the country’s trade and investment, The Wall Street Journal reported. The foreign-exchange commission, formed by central bank and Finance Ministry officials, said the dollar sales were to provide liquidity and ease the exchange volatility of recent days, and kept open the possibility of additional interventions.

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.

Small groups of protesters blockaded some roads and gasoline stations in Mexico on Monday to protest a government price deregulation that sent the price of fuel up by as much as 20 percent over the weekend, the International New York Times reported. One group blockaded a privately owned gasoline station on Mexico City's main boulevard, shouting: "The people, united, will never be defeated!" "This will increase the cost of living for all Mexicans.

Mexico’s government has announced the biggest increases in petrol prices in almost two decades in a move that risks a backlash against its efforts to liberalise the country’s energy market, the Financial Times reported. The average prices across Mexico in January will be 15.99 pesos for a litre of regular petrol, 17.79 pesos for premium and 17.05 pesos for diesel, representing increases of 14.2 per cent, 20.1 per cent and 16.5 per cent, respectively, compared to December 2016.

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.