Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for January 14th, 2009

In the news the past few days have been talk of the former Telecom Juggernaut Nortel filing for Bankruptcy protection due to a loan repayment that may be due this week (there is no clear statement that this is actually the case).

What does this really mean?

To the folks still working there, not too much, life will go on and there jobs will most likely continue on for now.

The concerns I am hearing are from an interesting cross section of former and current Nortel employees:

1. Folks who have just been notified of their redundancy, however they have not received their severance packages yet, if the company files for bankruptcy protection, what happens to these agreements?
2. Pensioners, what happens to the pension plan which is already under funded? In bankruptcy protection what happens to the Pension liability?
3. Current employees who were hoping to be laid off and getting a fair severance package? Rumor has it that lay offs are on hold, due to a lack of funds to pay them out? Sounds like an interesting rumor, but completely unsubstantiated as well.

Under bankruptcy protection a quick sale of Nortel my happen as well, and if that happens the creditors of the “old” Nortel may well have more issues dealing with the new owners as well.

All very interesting questions that I do not have answers for, if anyone cares to add their comments I am open to any and all commentary on this interesting situation.