North America

Corus Entertainment Inc. is possibly interested in buying some specialty channels from Canwest Global Communications Ltd., but not other parts of its media business, Corus CEO John Cassaday said Wednesday. Corus operates a broad array specialty cable channels, including YTV, Treehouse, W Network, and Cosmopolitan TV, as well as Movie Central and HBO Canada in western Canada, The Canadian Press reported.

When Nortel Networks Corp. sought court protection from its creditors last January, its chief executive officer, Mike Zafirovski, promised creditors and employees that the telecommunications company would stanch its debt wounds and re-emerge in fighting form, The Globe and Mail reported in an analysis. But the pledge, like Mr. Zafirovski, was gone by summer.

Swiss drug industry supplier Lonza Group said on Tuesday it was closing three chemical sites to cut costs as it grapples with a challenging economic environment, Reuters reported. Lonza will close its sites at Riverside in the United States, Shawinigan in Canada and Wokingham in Britain and will cut 175 employees, aiming to cut fixed costs by between 60 million Swiss francs ($59.1 million) and 80 million in the next 18 to 24 months, it said in a statement. The group will face total restructuring cost of approximately 140 million francs, booked into 2009.

A U.S. bankruptcy court judge approved an application Tuesday, seeking to make the controversial Canadian restructuring plan of C$32 billion in toxic asset-backed commercial paper enforceable in the U.S., Dow Jones reported. Ernst & Young, which was appointed monitor by an Ontario court in March, petitioned the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the southern district of New York to import, in its entirety, the restructuring plan under chapter 15 of the U.S. bankruptcy code. U.S. Judge Martin Glenn approved the decision, Ken Coleman of Allen & Overy LLP told Dow Jones.

A delegation from the Swedish government will meet with General Motors next week in the United States to discuss the future of loss-making car unit Saab, Sweden's national news agency said on Tuesday. Representatives from Sweden's finance and industry ministries will meet in Detroit with Saab parent GM and Ford, currently in the process of selling its Swedish car unit Volvo Cars. "As we understand it, GM has not closed the door to a sale (of Saab), even if the official line is a wind-down," state secretary Joran Hagglund said.

Canada's industry minister approved Ciena Corp's $769 million bid for a unit of bankrupt Nortel Networks Inc. and said on Tuesday the deal was likely to be of net benefit for Canada, Reuters reported. "This investment will maintain jobs, R&D activity and corporate leadership in Canada, Industry Minister Tony Clement said in a late night statement that also noted Ciena's promise to invest in Canada.

TLC Vision Corp. has agreed to sell its six laser eye centres in Canada as part of a pre-arranged creditor protection filing on Monday that will see the eye-care company emerge as a private entity, the Financial Post reported. The centres, currently known as TLC Laser Eye Centres, will operate under the TLC Canada banner once the sale to a group of Canadian investors is completed, a spokesperson for TLC said. No details on the sale price have been released.

A U.S. bankruptcy-court judge postponed his ruling Wednesday on an application seeking to make the controversial Canadian restructuring plan for C$32 billion in toxic asset-backed commercial paper enforceable in the U.S., Dow Jones reported. Ernst & Young, which was appointed monitor by an Ontario court in March, petitioned the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the southern district of New York to import, in its entirety, the restructuring plan under chapter 15 of the U.S. bankruptcy code. U.S.

Foreign investors were a major force in New York’s real estate boom of the last decade, with families and companies from Dubai to Australia swallowing weekend apartments and Midtown office towers. In 2007, the roster of international investors came to include a British firm, Dawnay Day, whose executives had a splashy reputation for spending millions on fine art and yachts, The New York Times reported. The efforts [to regentrify East Harlem neighborhoods], though, didn’t get far before the recession spread across the globe and Dawnay Day went bust.

GE Energy Financial Services and Vancouver-based Plutonic Power Corporation have paid CAD $52.2 million ($48.9 million) to the financially troubled EarthFirst Canada Inc for the 300-megawatt Dokie Wind Project in British Columbia, CleanTech Brief reported. EarthFirst has been under court-ordered protection from creditors under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act. GE and Plutonic have formed a partnership through which they will construct and operate the project’s first 144-megawatt phase which is expected to enter commercial operation by early 2011.