Reuters News

Transcontinental Inc said it would buy the U.S. packaging business of Coveris Holdings SA for about $1.70 billion (US$1.32 billion) as the Canadian publisher looks to join other top North American companies in the flexible packaging space, Reuters reported. As part of the deal, Transcontinental will take control of privately held Coveris Americas’ 21 production facilities that make rollstock, bags and pouches, shrink films and labels, among others. Luxembourg's Coveris Holdings is a portfolio company of U.S. private equity firm Sun Capital Partners. It was formed in 2013 through a merger of five packaging businesses.

Brookfield Property Partners LP’s latest bid to acquire the two-thirds of mall owner GGP Inc it does not already own low-balls the price of prime retail assets whose value has been obscured by e-commerce, analysts told Reuters. Brookfield’s existing 34 percent stake in GGP puts it in the driver’s seat because it only has to pay 65 cents on the dollar to match other offers, said Alex Goldfarb, a managing director at Sandler O’Neill + Partners LP. Another offer would have to replace the board and management, which Brookfield does not need to do, he said.

Commercial real estate firm Brookfield Property Partners LP said this week it would acquire the 66 percent of GGP Inc that it does not already own in a cash-and-stock deal that values GGP, one of the largest owners and operators of U.S. shopping centres, at about US$15.3 billion, Reuters reported. The agreement comes four months after a special board committee of GGP rejected a US$14.8 billion cash-and-stock offer from Brookfield as inadequate. Under the latest offer, GGP shareholders can elect to receive US$23.50 in cash per share, or either one Brookfield unit or one newly created share that trades as a real estate investment trust.

Shares of Canadian specialty lender Callidus Capital Corp lost as much as 21.6 percent in two trading sessions, hitting an all-time low, after a Reuters report last week raised questions about the valuations that parent firm Catalyst Capital Group assigned to some of its portfolio companies. Callidus, which offers high-interest loans to distressed companies and went public in 2014, is one of the largest holdings in Catalyst’s private equity funds. Among other things, the Reuters report said that Callidus has so far been unable to find a buyer to take the company private.

Canadian financier Newton Glassman has long told his private equity firm’s clients that his big bet on casinos would yield a financial jackpot. Others haven’t been so sure. At the end of 2011, a year after Glassman’s Catalyst Capital Group took control of Gateway Casinos & Entertainment Ltd, Catalyst told investors in a report seen by Reuters that it already had more than doubled their money and that its majority stake was worth US$475 million, for an implied value of the company of US$699 million. But Catalyst was forced to abandon a planned initial public offering of Gateway in 2012 after investors balked at the firm’s valuation.

Canadian privately-held broadband provider Xplornet Communications Inc has hired two investment banks to explore a potential sale that could value the company at $2 billion, including debt, sources told Reuters. Xplornet, based in Woodstock, New Brunswick, is working with UBS Group AG and Bank of Montreal to assist it in the sales process. The process, which is in its early stages, could attract interest from private equity firms and infrastructure funds, the sources said. Xplornet’s private owners include U.S. private equity firms Sandler Capital Management and Catalyst Investors. It has also been backed by Canadian family office Werklund Capital Corp.

Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management is preparing a local bond sale in Brazil to help finance part of its investment in a Brazilian gas pipeline, sources told Reuters. In what would be Brazil’s largest local bond sale in two years, Brookfield is in talks to issue 5.2 billion reais (US$1.6 billion) in local bonds as part of a strategy to leverage its US$5.2 billion investment in the gas pipeline and raise its profits with the deal. The bonds will be issued by Nova Transportadora do Sudestes (NTS). Last year, a Brookfield-led consortium agreed to acquire a 90 percent stake in NTS from Brazil's state-run Petróleo Brasileiro SA.