Coventree Inc. reports that Brendan Calder has been appointed as chairman of the board of directors of Coventree until its next annual meeting.

Calder’s appointment as chairman replaces the Board’s previous practice of nominating a chairman for each board meeting on a rotating basis.

Calder has been a director of Coventree since May 2005. He is an Adjunct Professor of Strategic Management of the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Prior to joining Rotman, he was chair, president and CEO of CIBC Mortgages Inc. Calder is a corporate director of other companies and has received an ICD.D from the Institute of Corporate Directors.

As previously announced on September 18, Coventree remains supportive of the efforts of the consortium representing banks, asset providers and major investors in asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) which announced the so-called Montreal Proposal on August 16, to stabilize the Canadian ABCP market.

“Coventree is committed to working with the consortium and the related Pan Canadian Investors Committee chaired by Mr. Purdy Crawford to find a solution to the continuing market disruption on a timely basis,” stated Dean Tai, CEO of Coventree.

On September 18, Coventree announced cost reduction measures. Excluding the costs to implement those measures, the company has presently aligned its cost structure with its current expectations for revenue. Coventree says it cannot project whether its revenues will continue at current levels and cannot assess its financial position fully until detailed plans for a solution to the continuing market disruption are available from the Pan Canadian Investors Committee.

The company says Coventree-sponsored conduits in the aggregate have approximately $16 billion in fundings outstanding, of which approximately $7.7 billion are liquidity-backed ABCP (also known as A notes) and $7.3 billion are extendible ABCP (also known as E notes). This ABCP and other debt issued by the conduits sponsored by Coventree are subject to the standstill that is a part of the Montreal Proposal.

It company also issued the following reminder: “While Coventree sponsors and administers these ABCP conduits, the ABCP issued by them are not obligations of Coventree or guaranteed by Coventree. The assets in such Coventree-sponsored conduits are not owned by Coventree and therefore cannot be used by Coventree in its business nor are they available to meet the obligations of Coventree to its creditors. Similarly, the liabilities of such Coventree-sponsored conduits are not obligations of Coventree — the recourse of the debtholders of a conduit is generally limited to the assets of that conduit.”