Target Corp will exit the Canadian market after less than two years in a surprise retreat that will throw more than 17,000 employees out of work and trigger a $5.4 billion quarterly loss. Shares of the U.S. discount retailer, which was granted creditor protection for its money-losing Canadian subsidiary, at one point rose more than 4 percent on the move. The stock was up 2.2 percent at $75.94 in afternoon trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

Canada’s biggest banks are trying to quell investor concern about their exposures to the energy sector given the plunge in oil prices, The Wall Street Journal reported. Bank stocks have taken a beating on those worries with the S&P/TSX Composite Bank Index down about 8% year-to-date as of Wednesday afternoon, amid broader concerns about the potential impact on the Canadian economy of a prolonged slump in energy prices.

Alberta’s Premier said Tuesday that collapsing crude-oil prices will hurt the energy-rich Western Canadian province for “several years” and likely force his government to offset mounting deficits by cutting spending and raising taxes, The Wall Street Journal reported. “This is a challenging time for our province,” Alberta Premier Jim Prentice said at a news conference on Tuesday, referring to a drop in crude-oil prices to six-year lows. “This is the most significant public financial circumstance that we’ve seen in this province for a generation,” he said. Mr.

Victims of the Lac-Megantic oil-by-rail disaster that killed 47 people in the Canadian province of Quebec in 2013 agreed to a nearly $200 million settlement with some of the firms involved, including the insolvent rail operator at the center of the tragedy, a lawyer for the victims said on Friday. Montreal Maine and Atlantic (MMA), along with its insurers, founder Edward Burkhardt, and various other companies, will pay into the settlement fund, which will be distributed to the victims of the train derailment and explosion, lawyer Peter Flowers of Meyers & Flowers in Chicago told Reuters.

The highly critical judgment in the bankruptcy trial of former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm has been passed to the office of the US Trustee, which can refer the judge’s findings to the department of justice and recommend criminal charges on perjury and fraud, the Irish Times reported.

Canada’s Nortel Networks Corp. is appealing a U.S. court ruling that could put the bulk of the dissolved company’s cash into the hands of distressed-debt trading firms, The Wall Street Journal reported. The ruling under attack blessed a settlement between Nortel’s U.S. unit and investors who bought the company’s debt after its 2009 collapse. The pact allows bondholders to collect more than $1 billion in interest on their $4 billion holdings in the former telecommunications company.

Altos Hornos de Mexico SA, the steelmaker known as Ahmsa, said it asked a judge to end its 15-year bankruptcy following an agreement with a majority of creditors that calls for repayment of $1.7 billion. Creditors will be called to a meeting to confirm their acceptance of the deal, which proposes a three-year payback in pesos, Ahmsa said in a statement today to the Mexican stock exchange. That session would pave the way to exit a restructuring case begun in 1999, the company said.

A key gauge of household debt in Canada climbed to a record high in the third quarter as Canadians accumulated debt faster than their incomes grew, illustrating what the central bank has deemed the top risk to the domestic financial system, The Wall Street Journal reported. The ratio of household credit-market debt to personal disposable income rose to 162.60% from a revised 161.45% in the second quarter, Statistics Canada said Monday. That means Canadians owe roughly 1.63 Canadian dollars ($1.41) on every dollar of disposable income.

Mexican homebuilder Urbi has filed for bankruptcy protection to restructure its debt, the company said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The creditors which have so far signed the restructuring plan held some 21.9 billion pesos ($1.55 billion) in debt, equivalent to around 53.3 percent of the total claims on Urbi, the company said in a statement. Urbi, Mexico's third-largest homebuilder in recent years, is following its bigger peers after struggling under heavy debt loads and slumping sales of their cheap, single-unit homes in developments often located far from urban centers.

Three units of PT Bumi Resources, Asia’s most-indebted coal miner, filed for creditor protection in the U.S. after failing to make a semi-annual interest payment, Bloomberg News reported. Bumi Investment Pte Ltd listed assets and debt of as much as $1 billion each in Chapter 15 papers filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. Bumi Capital Pte and Enercoal Resources Pte also sought court protection. Companies use Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code to fend off creditor claims in the U.S. while they reorganize their finances elsewhere.