Business digest

Published Saturday September 27th, 2008

U.S. firm wants to buy Connors Bros.

TORONTO - Connors Bros. Income Fund units gained more than 30 per cent Friday - rising to near their level a year ago - after an American private equity group struck a deal to take over the fish-canning trust.

Centre Partners Management LLC, with offices in Manhattan and Los Angeles, has signed a deal to buy the Connors Bros. businesses for $8.50 per unit, a total of $437.5 million.

Connors Bros. units, which had closed at $6.23 Thursday before the agreement was announced, rose $2.02 to $8.25 in morning trading.

Units in the trust, whose brands include Bumble Bee, Clover Leaf and Brunswick, traded as low as $4.55 in March after tumbling from the $11 level in mid-2007 amid a botulism food-poisoning recall at its Castleberry's canned-meat subsidiary in the U.S.

Lower Churchill hydro project a step closer

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - The Innu of Labrador have reached a deal that could help pave the way for the development of the Lower Churchill hydroelectric project.

The agreement, which still must be ratified by the Innu Nation, also provides the Innu with redress for the development of the Upper Churchill hydroelectric project in the 1960s, Premier Danny Williams of Newfoundland and Labrador told a news conference.

"The Innu Rights Agreement will bring tremendous new benefits and opportunities to the Innu people of Labrador, and signals a new era of partnership and co-operation between their people and our government," Williams said in a statement.

The government said some negotiations will continue before final agreements are reached and voted on by the Innu early in 2009.

Firm to idle sawmills, forest operations

MONTREAL - Nearly 900 Quebec forestry workers will be laid off next month as AbitibiBowater Inc. idles four sawmills and woodland operations in the face of dwindling U.S. housing starts.

A sawmill in Thunder Bay, Ont., will also see its hours of work cut, but no layoffs are planned.

Operations in Lebel-sur-Quevillon (Comtois), La Tuque and St-Felicien will be closed for four weeks effective Oct. 6, AbitibiBowater said Friday.

Source: The Canadian Press

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