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Canwest newspapers to be sold to investment bankers?

The CBC reports today that, “The Canwest Global Communications Corp. media conglomerate has come to an agreement with a committee representing some of its lenders over a restructuring plan for the debt-laden company.”

“Under the agreement, some of the company’s business units have applied for and received court protection…”

“Global Television, MovieTime, DejaView, Fox Sports World and the company that operates the National Post are among the units included in the filing.”

“Canwest Limited Partnership, the business division that holds Canwest’s daily newspaper holdings including the Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Province and Calgary Herald, has not filed for creditor protection at this time.”

“But the Canwest LP newspaper unit, whose latest extension to pay interest owed to creditors is set to expire on Oct. 31, 2009, could still make a separate creditor protection filing of its own at some point before or after that date has passed.”

“Last week, reports claimed Paul Godfrey, the CEO of the National Post, had lined up investment bankers to buy some or all of the company’s newspaper assets. Canwest officially denied that the papers were for sale at the time, but the fact that they have been excluded from Tuesday’s CCAA filing could facilitate a sale down the road.”

In a separate news story, Canwest reports that, “The National Post and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. have reached an agreement to share content across their media platforms. Starting immediately, the Financial Post will make business stories available to run in CBC.ca’s Money section, while the CBC will provide daily sports stories for nationalpost.com. CBC stories will also occasionally run in the print edition of the newspaper. The two companies did not provide the financial details of the agreement.”

The bankruptcy protection story is at http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/10/06/canwest-bankruptcy.html. The National Post-CBC convergence report is at http://www.canada.com/business/fp/Post+team+share+content/2056944/story.html.