Top News Today/Canada: Fairfax Financial Buying Majority Stake in IDBI Bank

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Fairfax Financial Buying Majority Stake in India's IDBI Bank

Canada's Fairfax Financial is positioning itself in India's fast-growing financial services industry with the acquisition of a majority stake in IDBI Bank for 520 billion rupees, the equivalent of about US$5.43 billion.

India's government said Wednesday that it has approved the strategic restructuring of IDBI Bank and the sale of a 60.7% stake to a strategic buyer, billionaire Prem Watsa's Fairfax.

The government said that Fairfax's offer of 81 rupees a share for the stake above the benchmark price, as well as fair-value estimates, was judged to be reasonable and approved. IDBI's shares closed Wednesday at 90.44 rupees, up 9.1% for the day but down 12% in 2026.

Building Permits Rebounded in August, Rising 8.8%

Construction intentions in Canada recovered in August with a jump in residential building permits.

The total value of building permits rose 8.8% from the month before to a seasonally adjusted C$13.57 billion, Statistics Canada said. This follows a revised 15.8% drop in the value of permits a month earlier, after an 18.9% jump in June.

Compared with a year earlier, the value of permits issued in August was up 15.8%. In volume terms, permits issued increased 8.6% for the month and 12.4% year-over-year.

Waterous Energy Plans New Fund With a Goal of $1 Billion

Private-equity firm Waterous Energy Fund plans to soon begin marketing a new vehicle with a $1 billion anticipated goal to invest in a single business in Canada's oil patch that it can expand through acquisitions.

The Calgary, Alberta-based firm has finished investing its previous pool, Waterous Energy Fund III, which wrapped up last year with C$1.4 billion.

"The new fund will have the same size as the previous fund, around $1 billion. We intentionally made it identical to be consistent," said Adam Waterous, the firm's chief executive and managing partner. The firm has received indications of interest from investors that represent about 80% of that total, he said.

Waterous Energy expects to invest all the new fund's capital in a single oil-and-gas company that will seek to acquire assets from other producers or buy the companies outright, a strategy the firm followed with previous pools.

Energy Fuels Shares Drop on $500 Million Equity Program, Acquisition Amendment

Energy Fuels fell after the uranium producer disclosed plans for a new $500 million equity offering and amended terms for a key acquisition.

Shares trading in Toronto fell 10.1% to C$11.87.

The company on Wednesday said it filed a prospectus supplement allowing it to sell up to an additional $500 million in common shares under an at-the-market equity program.

Energy Fuels also said late Tuesday that it has amended its acquisition terms for German-based Vacuumschmelze, a manufacturers of advanced magnetic materials and permanent magnets, also known as VAC.

Calian Group Wins C$47 Million NATO Contract for Scenario Development

Calian Group secured a five-year contract to support NATO's Joint Warfare Centre in Stavanger, Norway, worth about C$47 million.

The Canadian mission-critical solutions company said that it will support the design, and develop and maintain complex training scenarios that underpin the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's strategic and operational-level exercises.

The NATO Joint Warfare Centre serves as a hub for collective training, preparing headquarters and forces for current and future operations.

Volatus Aerospace to Acquire AISPECO for Up to $13 Million

Volatus Aerospace has agreed to acquire developer of airborne sensor systems and flight-management software Aispeco UAB for up to $13 million.

The Canadian aerospace and defense company said that it will pay a base $10.5 million for the Vilnius, Lithuania-based company, made up of $3 million in cash and $7.5 million in its common shares. Volatus may also pay up to $2.5 million more in cash or stock if it meets certain milestones over the next three years.

The transaction gives Volatus direct ownership of proprietary sensor platforms, artificial intelligence-guided gimbals and flight-management software certified for installation on over 20 aircraft types.

Aya Gold & Silver's Morocco Mine Sees Record Quarterly Production

Aya Gold & Silver's silver mine in Morocco notched record output in the latest quarter, setting the miner up to hit its production target for the year.

The Canadian company said its Zgounder mine produced 1.5 million ounces of silver in the third quarter, up 11% on the same period last year.

Production for the first nine months of the year increased 23% to 4.25 million ounces.

Orezone Gold Third-Quarter Output Rises Sequentially, On Track to Meet Full-Year Targets

Orezone Gold said production rose in the third quarter, driven by performance at its operations in Canada and Burkina Faso.

The miner reported gold production of 59,674 ounces of gold produced in the period, up from 58,566 ounces in the previous quarter. The performance was driven by steady output at its flagship Bombore mine in West Africa and processing performance at the Casa Berardi mine in the province of Quebec.

Orezone reiterated its guidance for the year, noting that fourth-quarter output is expected to reach another record high.

Fromagerie L'Ancêtre Recalls Certain Cheeses in Canada Including Farm Boy Items on Risk of Listeria

Fromagerie L'Ancêtre Inc. recalled several organic cheeses due to the risk of listeria, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said.

Recalled items include cheddar and Swiss cheeses under Empire Co.'s Farm Boy brand. Certain L'Ancêtre brand cheddar, Swiss and mozzarella products were recalled, as was one Life Smart mozzarella item.

The CFIA said the recall resulted from CFIA test results and that there have been no reported illnesses associated with the products.

TALKING POINT

Canada's Household Debt Figures Conceal 'Pockets of Acute Stress,' Report Says

By Erica Alini, The Globe and Mail

Canada's national measures of household debt, already some of the highest among advanced economies, conceal growing financial pain among lower-income households, young people and highly indebted homeowners, according to new research.

An analysis by Mawakina Bafale and Peter MacKenzie at the C.D. Howe Institute found that Canadians' ability to save and repay debt is sharply divided across income and generational lines. While households in the top 20% of earners saved about a third of their disposable income last year, those in the bottom 60% were spending beyond their incomes, according to the report.

At the same time, adults under 25 on average reported at the end of 2025 a 50% chance of missing a debt payment, the authors noted, citing Bank of Canada data. By comparison, those over 54 rated that chance at less than 1%.

While Canada isn't teetering on the verge of a broad household debt crisis, pockets of financial distress among lower-income and young borrowers remain a vulnerability for the economy, according to Bafale and MacKenzie.

"Canada has a real but concentrated debt problem," they wrote.

National household debt statistics paint a picture of a country that successfully rode out the period of rapidly rising interest rates that followed the peak of the pandemic, the analysis noted.

Despite a spike in mortgage and other interest rates in 2022 and 2023 fuelled by market and central bank responses to soaring inflation, Canadians largely kept up with their debt obligations. And now that interest rates have come off those highs, Canada's main measures of household debt are no longer flashing red.

For instance, debt-to-disposable-income, which compares the size of households' debt to their disposable income, currently sits at around 176%, down from a high of 188% in 2022. Similarly, the debt-service ratio, which measures the share of household income that goes to debt payments, has edged lower since its 2023 peak.

But those high-level indicators of household financial health are papering over signs of worsening distress among vulnerable groups, the report shows.

While the highest-income households saved 34% of their disposable income in 2025, those in the middle 20% spent 12% more than their after-tax earnings, the authors calculated based on Statistics Canada data. Those in the next lower 20% spent almost a third more than their income, while the bottom 20% spent more than twice their disposable income.

That divide runs across generations, too. In a quarterly Bank of Canada survey of consumers, Canadians aged 18 to 24 have been reporting increasingly higher chances of missing upcoming debt payments since the end of 2020, according to Bank of Canada data.

Responses among those aged 25 to 54 show a similar pattern of growing financial pain. As of the end of last year, Canadians in that age group reported a 27% probability of falling behind on their debt payments, a record high.

A third group of troubled borrowers are those with large mortgages who are facing markedly higher interest rates at renewal, a problem largely concentrated around Toronto and Vancouver.

Bafale and MacKenzie called on Ottawa to adopt targeted measures that would help ease financial hardship where it is concentrated.

Amending existing rules to make it cheaper for lenders to offer mortgage terms longer than five years would help households better weather cycles of rising interest rates, they wrote. Supporting economic growth in mid-sized cities would help ease housing prices in the biggest cities, and more granular statistics on consumer insolvencies would help better track and respond to financial distress, the report said.

Expected Major Events for Thursday

04:30/JPN: Aug Revised Industrial Production

04:30/JPN: Aug Revised Retail Sales

06:00/UK: Aug Index of production

(MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires

October 14, 2026 16:27 ET (20:27 GMT)