TORONTO — Investment bankers have identified four potential suitors for Canwest Global Communications Corp. (TSXV:CGS), although each would face considerable obstacles to cutting a deal, the Globe and Mail reported Tuesday.
The newspaper, citing unidentified investment banking sources, said Corus Entertainment Inc. (TSX:CJR.B), Shaw Communications Inc. (TSX:SJR.B), Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. (TSX:FFH) and Jim Pattison Group are all possible bidders.
The Winnipeg-based company’s financial advisers at RBC Dominion Securities Inc. settled on four potential bidders last week and are now attempting to get the best possible terms from one of them, the paper said.
Canwest has spent the past three months searching for an investor willing put up to $65-million into the company, currently under court protection from its creditors, as part of a larger restructuring aimed at getting the media firm back on its feet, shorn of its crushing debt load.
The Globe said Fairfax is allied with former Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. chief financial officer David Lazzarato and co-founder and chief executive officer Michael MacMillan, according to investment banking sources.
Canwest acquired Alliance Atlantis and its stable of specialty TV channels in 2007 as part of a $2.3-billion deal funded largely by Goldman Sachs.
Canwest declined to comment Monday on its ongoing restructuring process.
RBC Dominion is running a separate auction of Canwest’s newspaper holdings, which are held in a different subsidiary of the parent firm and are also under creditor protection.