SaltWire, owner of 23 Atlantic Canada newspapers, files for creditor protection

People in Atlantic Canada could be at risk of losing a major source of local news saltwire network has filed for creditor protection this is a company that owns very significant local papers like The Chronicle Herald and Halifax the Cape Breton Post just to name a few pretty close to two dozen also some

Regional papers it’s the main player in local news for Atlantic Canada and Brett Ruskin is in Helifax with the details about the financial situation in which this company finds itself Brett good morning good morning Heather not a good financial situation unfortunately so I’m going to talk about some big numbers but

In the back of your mind just remember that there’s big numbers but there’s small communities that are affected by this because this company saltwire Network really does provide in some cases the only source of local news to those communities we’ll get to that in just a moment but let’s talk about the

Numbers I’m standing here outside the Chronicle Herald headquarters the headquarters for saltwire Network as well looking at $94 million in debt and $33 million in assets so that basic tally chart just doesn’t add up financially so the company has applied for creditor protection from the various

Loans that it has the various uh uh debts that it has it owes Canada Revenue Agency money it owes the pension plan money it’s missed payments for former employees for their pension payments as well it owes private Equity firms Private Financial firms money from loans that were provided to them now speaking

Of those employees the company has nearly 500 employees more than 800 contractors who work for the company as well that provide content and manage uh two dozen either daily or weekly Regional newspapers all throughout Atlantic Canada they again not only provide the news of the day but also

They provide really that heart of information for our community for example uh you may have heard in the last few months to note the obituaries that were recently placed behind a pay wall that created just an uproar in many communities with people not being able to have this kind of basic information

About you know births and deaths in their Community to such a degree that the Pei Premier said that he would consider paying for the service so that community members that Islanders could have that information so a key part information for communities we spoke with stepen Kimber he is a journalism

Professor as well as a veteran journalist here in Atlantic Canada talking about this decision talking about the situation that saltwire finds itself in here’s what he had to say without a real plan which they don’t seem to have had I would say yeah you know I don’t think they would have been

In in great shape anyway just because of the state of the the the industry but they’re in awful shape now and and and they have mostly only themselves to blame and so that’s the situation facing salt wire as it stands this morning he so the impact of this could be very

Far-reaching Brett what does it mean for the future yes of the company but also of its employees and the communities who rely on these papers a lot up in the air still Heather we don’t know if papers will be closing we don’t know if there’ll be Cuts or

Layoffs the company in a statement said that this this is a necessary process the best process for them to follow in order to ensure that they are vibrant and resilient in the future going forward we’ll have to wait and see what happens here uh but certainly it is

Going to have a a some kind of an impact on local news access we’ll just have to wait and see how this court process and financial process shapes up okay Brett thank you very much

SaltWire Network Inc., a company that owns 23 newspapers across Atlantic Canada, including Halifax’s Chronicle Herald, has debts of almost $100 million and is filing for creditor protection.

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