Canada firm cancels junk bond sale

Canada’s Quebecor Media has pulled a $750-million junk bond sale, the latest casualty of a more jittery U.S. high-yield market, KDP Investment Advisors said Wednesday.

A unit of Quebecor Inc., Quebecor Media announced the debt sale Monday, a day before fresh worries about the U.S. sub-prime mortgage crisis sparked another sharp sell-off in high-yield bonds. Quebecor Media owns Canada’s largest national chain of tabloids and community newspapers.

At least six junk bond sales were withdrawn in recent weeks as worries about sub-prime fallout took a toll on investors’ appetite for risk.

A spokesman for Quebecor Media could not immediately be reached for comment.

The company had planned to use proceeds from the bond sale to finance its acquisition of Osprey Media Income Fund, to buy all of the common shares of Nurun Inc. it did not already own and to make a payment to the Carlyle Group.

On Wednesday, the yield on an index of 100 junk bonds tracked by KDP reached 8%, up from 7.94% on Tuesday and the highest since August.