CanWest Slips Through Asper's Fingers

"...kind of hurtful to see a family not be successful."

Shaw Communications has slammed the door on the Asper family's connection to the media empire created by their patriarch, the late Izzy Asper. Despite repeated attempts by son Lenny Asper to salvage at least something from the CanWest television operation, Goldman Sachs finally turned its back on him and began negotiating the sale with Shaw Communications instead.

In announcing the culmination of the sale, JR Shaw seemed to get a couple of digs in at Lenny and the other Aspers, pointed referring to their failure:

“When you look back at it today, there’s no joy in seeing the Asper family not continue to grow and prosper. ...This is not necessarily a celebration; this is kind of hurtful to see a family not be successful."

Somehow it doesn't sound as though JR is all that choked up about the Aspers.

Lenny Quits the House That Dad Built

Will the last Asper to leave please turn out the lights? Lenny Asper has called it quits at CanWest having steered the company straight onto the rocks and into the arms of moonraker creditors. For a good while, Lenny had transformed CanWest into a public relations arm of his favourite causes, notably Israel and Canada's right wing. Years ago The Globe's Lawrence Martin wrote that CanWest, particularly the National Post, operated as the Conservative's party organ and was so far right it should be "delivered in a holster."

When you're pushing ideology talent is not at a premium, a fact borne out by the gaggle of second-rate hacks the likes of Terrence Corcoran, Kelley McParland, Jonathan Kay and visiting scribbler Lorne "the grunter" Gunter who practically oozed across the CanWest newsprint. These guys weren't journalists as much as side show barkers, carnies. Their output was lame but, worse, it was predictable and ultimately boring. As the headliners of The National Spot, it's not difficult to see why the paper was a monumental money loser. It was in the wrong country. That sort of trash actually has a strong market south of our border but not here.

CanWest's broadcasting arm is gone. G-lowball is lost to the Aspers forever. The papers are up on the block with bidding to close this Friday. Creditors hope the papers will fetch more than the .95-billion dollars they're owed. Failing that they're expected to bundle them up into a new chain and take the whole thing public. Hard to see how well that will work. I'd bet it's just as likely they'll wind up having to flog them piecemeal with bidders paying good money for the wheat and fire sale prices for the chaff.

CanWest - Tits Up - Files for Bankruptcy Protection

The Fat Lady has sung. CanWest Global has thrown itself on the mercy of the bankruptcy court.

The Winnipeg-based company has filed for protection under the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act. The CCAA is a vehicle for insolvent companies to have the court shelter them from the claims (and claws) of creditors while they try to reach a settlement with the major, secured creditors. Wee, little, insignificant ordinary creditors are toast.

If the company comes up with an "arrangement" satisfactory to the court it can emerge as a functioning, operating entity conveniently shed of those little creditors and with the majors pared down. If the court doesn't like what it sees, it's over - bankruptcy.

What remains to be seen is what happens to the Aspers, their equity in CanWest and their future role in the management of the company.

Way to go David. Way to go Lenny. Way to go Terry and Jonathon and Lorne and all the rest of you hacks. Here's a tip. Make up your mind whether you're going to produce a newspaper or toilet paper. If it's the latter, you'll do better if you leave out the ink.

CanWest's Quirky Take on Climate Change

It's a bad year for prairie farmers. Severe drought has already sent them running for their crop insurance benefits. It's bad enough in Alberta that farmers no longer have to wait for a visit by crop insurance inspectors. The province has announced they can just call it in.

The question on many lips is whether the droughts are the result of climate change? It's impossible to tell just yet. Climate change isn't a seasonal, annual or even decadal phenomenon. It's long-term in scope, multi-decadal. But that hasn't stopped CanWest's Edmonton Journal from speculating:

...The drought has swept through huge areas of the province leaving virtually all farmers in its dust. It's not as if there's any lucky, unscrupulous farmer hiding a lush bumper crop.

To make matters even bleaker, some weather experts say: "We haven't seen the worst of it."

Nobody can point with any authority to global warming as the culprit. It does not move from normal weather to abnormal weather in a straight line. One bad year does not climate change make. But there is a disturbing trend here that meshes with predictions from climatologists who fear we're headed into more and more climate trouble--2008 was a particularly bad year for hail damage in both Alberta and Saskatchewan. If this is indeed evidence of climate change, farmers must feel as if they're the canary in the mine shaft.

...Seeing a group of fellow Albertans, such as farmers, suffering the effects of climate change first-hand makes the issue real and immediate rather than an ethereal concept affecting someone in a far off country who might face a flood sometime in the future.

If the Alberta government really does want to fight the war on greenhouse gas emissions its stance is bolstered with each drop of rain that doesn't fall.

Our farmers as victims of global warming also raises something of a dilemma for the province. Alberta has been targeted once again --this time by the World Wildlife Foundation--as a growing source of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Our emissions might be tiny on a global scale, but they are huge at the per-capita level. And per capita is where we lose the moral ground to countries such as China that have enormous emissions, but only because they have so many more people. Based on the per-capita argument it would appear the economic winners in our energy industry are making losers of our farmers.

Pretty heady stuff coming from a CanWest branch plant, an organization that has done just about everything they could conceive of to portray global warming induced climate change as a great hoax. Maybe going broke has helped them come to their senses.

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Technology/climate+change+behind+drought/1755824/story.html

Writing Off CanWest

Fairfax Financial Holdings has a problem on its hands, an outfit called CanWest Global Communications Corp.

In 2007, Fairfax picked up an 11% interest in CanWest when the shares were trading at $6. The investment firm subsequently doubled that stake.

Now with CanWest shares trading at 28-cents and the future of the company in serious doubt, Fairfax has simply written off its stake in the Winnipeg-based communications company. It sounds like Fairfax isn't holding its breath waiting for Lenny Asper to salvage CanWest.

http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/627037

A Picture is Worth - Not Very Much

This is the 12-month stock chart for CanWest Global Communications Corp.




And here's CanWest's 2-year stock chart:

What's that old saying about "buy low, sell high?"

CanWest Still Clinging to Life

The governor called. CanWest has been unstrapped from the table and returned to its cell.

Bloomberg reports that CanWest has been given an extension to March 11 to renegotiate some of its debts.

Lorne Gunter Has His Eye On The Future

Lorne Gunter, loudmouth columnist with the National Toast, flagship of the soon to be defunct CanWest media circus, has written a piece on how to enjoy life on a lot less during this recession. I wonder if Grunter's been pondering his own future:

If we're not eating out as much, perhaps we're eating home more often, maybe even as families.
Sure you can talk together as a family over some spinach and artichoke dip and a thin-crust, brick-oven pizza at a restaurant. But without all the noise and clatter and would-you-like-fresh-ground-pepper-with-that interruptions, you might chat together even more.

You might have to dust off your playing cards and board games rather than hurrying to stand in line at the neighbourhood megaplex to see a movie no one is really happy to see, but which everyone has compromised on. (I make way better popcorn than those high school concession workers at the theatre, anyway.)

Maybe your vacation this summer will involve driving your van further than the airport park-and-ride. Maybe it will involve camping at a nearby provincial park or setting up in your cousins' backyard (provided the cousins don't object, mind you). You may have to be more Clark Griswold than Paris Hilton when planning your summer getaway.

My parents saved up for three or four years for good road-trip vacations --Expo '67, Disneyland--but in between we made do with sites closer to home. The vacation we still talk about the most was the camping trip to Saskatchewan's 1971 Homecoming. We have more funny, shared stories from that summer than any other.

Read a book. Read a newspaper (please, read a newspaper). Invite the next door neighbours over for burgers on the deck. Go for a walk instead of a workout. Rediscover the joy and excitement in conversation.

Relearning to appreciate the simple things -- playing with the box prosperity came in -- can be the silver lining in austere times.

Good advice for anyone facing the pinch in this recession, from a guy who should know.