Buy Low/Sell High

Subprime and the Alliance deal take 2

Though this article from the Globe and Mail briefly touches on the issue of the junk bond crisis (Subprime in other words), it's another glimpse into the reality of Leveraged Buyouts (LBO's), and how these nasty little schemes end up enriching the investment bankers who make the deals and hurt those who have no clue (the investors, the little guy....like the pensioners who unwittingly hold CanWest in their portfolios).

An excerpt (from Globe & Mail):

If there's a crisis brewing in the markets, CanWest always finds a way to step in the middle of it. After it bought Hollinger International's Canadian newspapers in 2000, it got caught in a credit squeeze, resulting in a horrible bond deal at usurious interest rates. When the company decided to float those papers as an income trust in 2005, it got hurt again; the deal closed just as it began to look like then-finance minister Ralph Goodale was going to tax trusts (he didn't). When it went to finance the Alliance deal this summer ... well, you know - it ran full-speed into the junk bond meltdown.

What Price Salvation?

This is an article that I wrote for FilmCan.org on current industrial relations....

What Price Salvation?
by: Jason Chesworth
from: FilmCan.org

While reading the latest report on the Canadian Television Fund (CTF), I was reminded of a friend who put herself on a personal weekly “point system” as a way to reward herself for accomplishing certain daily tasks. If this friend got out of bed before 10 a.m. and made the bed, she received one point. Working on her art that day got her five points. She even had a score for making love to her husband (I don’t know the score of that particular). Throughout the week, she was able to “redeem” certain accumulations of points for prizes, like the latest issue of Wallpaper (25 points) or a new CD (50 points). This scheme had the effect of controlling her personal finances and motivating her at a particular moment in time. However, the CTF report isn’t inspiring, and it isn't a story of self-motivation, unless you view beaureaucratic bodies such as the Canadian Radio-Television Commission (CRTC) as an integral part of the Canadian identity. Regulatory boards such as these can often seem like nagging moms reminding you to eat your broccoli or brush your teeth before you go to bed, and most debate on media regulations is sure to be intensely boring to someone in Anytown, Canada eating a bag of Lays in front of the latest episode of CSI: NY.

click here to read the rest of the article.

Kim Hume new Director of Policy at ACTRA

From Playback Magazine:

Kim Hume has been promoted to director of public policy and communications at ACTRA National, effective immediately, where she takes over from Ken Thompson.

Hume, who has been with the organization for six years and most recently served as public relations officer at ACTRA Toronto, will oversee all aspects of public policy and communications. Thompson, meanwhile, has been hired as the new director of copyright and broadband law at Rogers Communications.

"Hume brings a wealth of experience in communications, organizing and lobbying to her new position, along with extensive involvement in arts advocacy and the union movement," according to Wednesday release from the office of executive director Stephen Waddell.

Subprime crisis and Alliance takeover

Y'know....

I've been wondering if this whole 'subprime crisis' that is affecting our markets was going to "touch" the Alliance Atlantis takeover by CanWest Global. Why? Because CanWest's aquisition of Alliance is happening because of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (which has really pioneered the use of "commercial paper"....commercial paper, of course being the type of debt at the centre of the "subprime crisis"). In short, it's a leveraged buyout....the kind of buyout that accelerates debt....and who's on the hook, ultimately???

Well....the citizens (read: taxpayers) are always on the hook for everything.

So - the CRTC is stalling the hearings for the CanWest (Goldman Sachs) takeover of Alliance Atlantis to look at some of the paperwork that was late in being 'processed'...

I wonder if they're trying to figure out just how much "junk" is underwriting the borrowed bucks in this leveraged buyout....

Read the Financial Post article here....

CRTC officials grill Astral over Standard Broadcasting price

Suggest deal worth more than $1.08-billion

GRANT ROBERTSON

MEDIA REPORTER

August 28, 2007

GATINEAU, QUE. -- Astral Media Inc. faced tough questions yesterday from federal broadcast regulators who suggested the broadcaster is low-balling the $1.08-billion purchase price of Standard Broadcasting Ltd. - a deal that will create the largest commercial radio company Canada has ever seen.

At hearings held yesterday to scrutinize the massive takeover, officials with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission indicated they believe the Standard transaction is worth more than Montreal-based Astral is letting on, and that certain items have been left out of the purchase price to keep a lid on regulatory payments.

Astral executives were questioned about the stock price used to value more than two million shares changing hands in the deal, which the CRTC argues is being understated.

Read the rest here

"We control all of the West. We're a powerful family."

Great long article in the Globe on Jim Shaw. Good to see that the broadcasters are doing so well. Now if only he'd share the wealth with the rest of the industry...

From the Globe:

Confessions of a cable guy The industry is chugging along, and the money is rolling in.

By: GRANT ROBERTSON

August 25, 2007

KELOWNA, B.C. -- The doorbell rings at Jim Shaw's summer home in the Okanagan Valley and the head of Shaw Communications Inc. answers wearing khaki shorts and no shoes.

It's an unusually hot day, even for this famous apple-growing region of B.C., where the chief executive officer of Canada's second-largest cable company has spent much of August.

"Don't worry," he says, padding through the lakeside house in Kelowna. "We're not too uptight around here."

Casual indeed. Moving swiftly into the kitchen, Mr. Shaw pushes a stack of papers - his work for the morning - to one side of the dinner table and offers up a chair.

Read the rest of the article here