Late last night, the firm at the centre of the Canadian liquidity crunch, Coventree Inc., announced that its conduits did not place any liquidity-backed asset-backed commercial paper, and that it only placed $13 million of extendible ABCP.

The extendible ABCP (known as E notes) were purchased by investors that elected to renew
or roll-over their ABCP that matured. In aggregate, approximately $268 million of ABCP and $59 million of E notes issued by Coventree’s conduits matured yesterday.

Coventree said it does not know the extent to which this failure to place the remainder of its maturing ABCP was a result of the continuing ABCP market disruption that began on August 13, or of continuing technical difficulties at the depositary for its conduits’ ABCP that prevented the processing of orders to purchase such ABCP.

It reported that, once again, “certain investors in ABCP issued by Coventree-sponsored conduits that matured today advised Coventree that attempts to roll-over maturing ABCP into new ABCP in Coventree’s conduits were unsuccessful. Accordingly, Coventree is unable to assess today’s investor demand for its conduits’ ABCP.”

“At this time, the company continues to be unable to predict the extent of the impact of this market disruption on Coventree’s financial results, operations, and financial condition including any impairment of assets in future periods,” it said. “The current market disruption will adversely affect and may materially adversely affect the future revenues of the company. Coventree is still unable to predict how long the current market disruption will continue or the extent to which the market disruption will affect the conduits’ ability to raise funds to continue to finance their operations.”