Stock analysts on Monday declared Canwest Global Communications shares "worthless" and advised investors to avoid them.
A Reuters report says Canwest must pay $30.4 million (US) in interest to its lenders by Tuesday. Otherwise, investors could demand $761 million owing them.
"Given the significant liquidity challenges facing the company, we see no residual value in the shares of Canwest," BMO Capital Markets analyst Tim Casey wrote in a note to clients.
Other analysts were equally pessimistic. Reuters quotes National Bank Financial analyst as saying, "We see no compelling reason to own, let alone buy Canwest shares, which we would continue to avoid."
GMP Securities analyst Jason Jacobson is equally negative. Reuters quotes him as saying his target price on the shares is zero.
At 11:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, Canwest shares were trading at 30.5 cents, down 1.5 cents. Canwest's 52-week high was $4.77.
At 1:00 p.m. PST, Canwest was down 8 cents to 24 cents, its 52-week low.
Crawford Kilian is a contributing editor of The Tyee.
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munroe
3 years ago
What we always knew
Canwest is worthless. Fire the owners and managers and let the workers take control. Then it would be a NEWS outlet.
Tony Martinson
3 years ago
Munroe beat me to it
I wanted to say
... so their shares are now equal in value to their usual news coverage
Rod Smelser
3 years ago
Well, ... what IS going to happen?
Without objecting in principle to what Munroe is saying, I wonder if that's the most likely outcome. In the past, this or that paper or station went broke, and was bought up by some more profitable media conglomerate.
This is different. It's not one ship going under, it's the entire steamship line. Who's coming to the rescue this time?
And let's not forget that the fundamental problem of declining ad revenues is impacting public as well as private media, and will soon be hitting all your favourite internet pastimes, from Facebook to Hotmail.
My guess is that there's going to be a huge switchover to much more user pay in all communications media. If you don't pay to subscribe, your media world in ten years could be a lot smaller. That could be a good thing in terms of responsible journalism, but it will take some of the fun out of sharing family pics with all your friends online.
Van Isle
3 years ago
Canwest was in trouble long
Canwest was in trouble long before the down-turn in the economy. Of course the spin doctor department had to work a little overtime to blame something/someone (and certainly not mismanagement) for their demise. Couldn't blame the workers cuz there's hardly enough around. Ah ha, that's it, blame advertising revenue is down. Still, should be kinda interesting how much in bonuses these financal wizards get.
Skywalker
3 years ago
30.5 cents a share
Are the shares as worthless as all the biased political coverage of the BC political scene. Not quite, but getting there and there is a lesson here for Canwest Execs. It's called karma.
DJT
3 years ago
I second the general motion.
I second the general motion. I don't know how many people I know who have ceased reading the Sun and Province due to it's blatant political bias, particularly in terms of the Provincial Liberal party. RS has a good point though, what would replace it? Probably something just as crummy, unfortunately.