Fairfax Financial gets on house with Churchill port, northern rail bid
CBC News has schooled that Toronto-based investment association Fairfax Financial Holdings will partner with dual Manitoba tenure groups to try a squeeze of Omnitrax’s resources in a province.
Denver-based Omnitrax owns a flood-damaged rail line to Churchill, Man., and a pier in a Hudson Bay community, about 1,000 kilometres north of Winnipeg. A territory of a rail line — a usually belligerent travel accessible to Churchill — has been close down given May, after being shop-worn progressing this year by serious open flooding.
Sources with believe of a bargain told CBC a sovereign supervision and a negotiator, former clerk of a Privy Council Wayne Wouters, have structured a bargain with a consortium of dual intensity tenure groups — One North and Missinippi Rail LP. This was after arguable by a sovereign government.Â
“This growth has a intensity to minister to an arrangement upheld by First Nations and communities in northern Manitoba,” Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr pronounced in a matter expelled Thursday.
“This would capacitate a tolerable business proceed that formula in a protected and arguable rail line.”
In a same recover Paul Rivett, boss of Fairfax Financial Holdings, said “we are confident about a prospects of northern gateways.”
“The Churchill rail mezzanine and a Port of Churchill are critical pieces of infrastructure for northern communities and to a economy of Canada. Partnering with First Nations and communities is a right indication for this investment,” Rivett said.
He pronounced Fairfax will rest on a association it has invested in, AGT Foods, to rise a plan that is “viable and essential in a prolonged tenure as a business.”
One North and Missinippi Rail LP paint First Nations and communities along a rail line to Churchill.
The further of Fairfax would be a poignant pierce on a rail line issue. Earlier this week, Omnitrax filed a explain for indemnification opposite a sovereign supervision underneath a manners of a North American Free Trade Agreement, and Ottawa responded with an $18-million lawsuit opposite a American company.
Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited describes itself on a website as a “holding association which, by a subsidiaries, is intent in skill and misadventure word and reinsurance and investment management.”Â
The conduct of a Toronto firm, V. Prem Watsa, has been described as a “Warren Buffet of Canada” and is famous for investing in, and branch around, companies in difficulty. Watsa was a poignant financier in BlackBerry and Fairfax has large holdings in several companies.
Fairfax Financial CEO and chair V. Prem Watsa is famous as a ‘value investor’ with land in BlackBerry, Torstar and Canadian Forest Products, as good as general companies. (CBC News )
Most recently, it paid scarcely $11.8 million to boost a holding of Torstar Corp.’s non-voting shares to 40.6 per cent. Torstar is a owners of a Toronto Star newspaper, a Metroland organisation of newspapers, and other digital and imitation media businesses.
The sovereign and Manitoba provincial governments have faced flourishing vigour from northern residents and domestic leaders to find a resolution to a rail line issue. Fuel and food prices have soared in Churchill and Omnitrax has laid off staff and cut use along a unimpaired apportionment of a northern Manitoba rail line.
The rail line from Gillam to Churchill has been close down due to flooding given May. (Mike Spence Submitted)
Omnitrax signed a chit of bargain with Missinippi Rail in Jun this year to squeeze a rail line and pier for $20 million. Missinippi, a consortium of northern First Nations, after assimilated One North to consolidate interests in shopping Omnitrax’s Manitoba assets.
In a created matter to CBC News, Churchill Mayor Mike Spence pronounced the transfer of a pier and rail line to a clever and fast northern informal tenure organisation is the priority. He applauded efforts to find a partner to assistance squeeze a assets.
“I am gratified that there are superb companies that also share this vision. We now need a negotiations expedited and [to] safeguard a preparations for repairs to a rail line and pier are prepared for a 2018 season,” wrote Spence.
Opaskwayak Cree Nation Onekanew (Chief) Christian Sinclair, who is co-chair of One North, has been asked to criticism on this story, though is out of a country.Â
Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/omnitrax-churchill-rail-port-fairfax-1.4405219?cmp=rss