[The Exiled]

The Company that Broke Canada

Nortel Networks Corporation (Nortel), formerly Northern Telecom Limited, was a Canadian multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. At its height, Nortel accounted for more than a third of the total valuation of all companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), employing 94,500 people worldwide. In the late 1990s, stock market speculators, hoping that Nortel would reap increasingly lucrative profits from the sale of fibre optic network gear, began pushing up the company's share price to unheard-of levels despite the company's repeated failure to turn a profit. In 2009, Nortel filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada and the United States, triggering a 79% decline in its corporate stock price. The bankruptcy case was the largest in Canadian history and left pensioners, shareholders, and former employees with enormous losses.

Sinking in Scandal: The Death of Nortel