The Hamilton Spectator

Nortel to start paying billions to creditors

- THE CANADIAN PRESS

TORONTO — Nortel Canada’s long-suffering creditors will finally begin to receive their share of more than US$4 billion to be distribute­d under a plan approved in January, eight years after the former technology titan began bankruptcy proceeding­s.

Nortel Networks Corp. — the formerly public multinatio­nal company that was headquarte­red in Canada — announced Friday that the initial distributi­on of the money is expected to be made in late June or early July.

The distributi­ons will include US$4.165 billion that Nortel Canada has now received as its share of a negotiated settlement after a yearslong battle over a total of US$7.3 billion raised by the sale of the company’s worldwide assets.

Nortel Canada will make its payments in stages to bondholder­s, suppliers and former employees who filed claims against the Canadian portion of the business, which was at one time among the world’s biggest network suppliers.

The exact timing and amounts of the payments are yet to be determined, but Nortel’s court-appointed monitor has said that creditors will get less than half of what they’d claimed.

Creditors with claims primarily in Canadian dollars will be entitled to between 45 and 49 cents per dollar owed. Creditors with claims in other currencies will receive between 41.5 and 45 cents in U.S. currency.

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