offices by the Competition Bureau sealed from the public. Contested Sale to NordStar Initial NordStar Proposal On May 26, 2020, Toronto Star publisher John Honderich announced the sale of Torstar to Nordstar Capital LP, controlled by Jordan Bitove and Paul Rivett, for $52-million. The price for the class A voting shares and class B non-voting shares was set at 63 cents in the deal. At the time of the most recent quarter, Torstar had $69-million in cash on its balance sheet – more than the $52-million acquisition price from Nordstar. However, Torstar’s share price had suffered from the company’s inability to generate enough revenue or cost savings to pay quarterly dividends, which were suspended late in 2019. The suspension pushed the publicly traded B shares to what was then the lowest level since at least the late 1990s — 53 cents. Weeks prior to the announcement of the deal, Torstar had reported a $23.5-million loss for the first quarter of 2020. The new owners planned to make Torstar a private company with former Premier of Ontario David Peterson as chair of the board. The initial financing for the deal was reported to be provided by Canso Investment Counsel Ltd. Canso is also a major debtholder of Postmedia, which owns a chain of newspapers across Canada including the National Post. Canso also held just under 1% of the class B non-voting shares of Torstar. Since 2017, the largest shareholder in Torstar was Fairfax Financial, owning 40% of the company's class B shares. Canso and Fairfax had a history of investing together, with the most notable example being BlackBerry. Canso and PointNorth (a fund launched by Jordan Bitove ) also had a history of investing together, most notably the privatization of AGT Food and Ingredients. Prior to the announcement of the Torstar deal, Paul Rivett had recently retired as the president of Fairfax after 17 years with the company. Rivett remains on the board of directors of certain Fairfax investees and will keep his position as chair of Recipe Unlimited. In a published statement, Paul Rivett said that Nordstar would work to ensure the "long-term viability of the business" and to continue the Torstar publications' values. "Torstar was formed around these values [the advancement of society], the Atkinson Principles, and I can assure you that if the agreement is approved, they will continue to serve as the organization’s intellectual foundation." Canadian Modern