Transat, NAV Canada latest companies affected by credit crunch

Travel company Transat A.T. Inc. and NAV Canada have become the latest companies to report that some of their cash has been parked in the troubled commercial paper market.

Transat said Wednesday that $154.5 million of its $340 million in cash was placed in 10 different asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) trusts.

Some of those trusts are managed by Coventree Capital Group, which sparked a wider liquidity crisis last week when it said it was having difficulty finding buyers for the specialized debt products it packages.

A $15 million note that came due on Tuesday was not repaid, Transat said. But it said it has enough cash available in the meantime to meet all of its obligations.

Transat, whichinvested in the commercial paper products on the advice of the National Bank,said it was talking with its bank and trust managers and was "closely monitoring the situation."

Transat officials said they expect to eventually recoverthe money. "Customer deposits are not at stake," said Franois Laurin,Transat's chief financial officer, during a Wednesday morning conference call.

NAV Canada the country's civil air navigation services provider also announced Wednesday that it has $368 million in ABCP investments. But it does not expect that any problems in the ABCP market will materially affect its operations or financial obligations, it said in a statement.

Numerous other companies affected

Meanwhile, a small Vancouver-based mining company Superior Mining InternationalCorporation disclosed Wednesday that $1 million of its $1.15 million in cash was also tied up in ABCP held by Coventree funds.

Its notes matured last Friday but were not repaid. Superior Mining said the company's operations aren't being affected. The company said HSBC Bank Canada recommended the fund's purchase.

Vancouver-based Silver Standard Resources Inc. saidTuesday it has $57 millioninvested in ABCP.

AndQueensland Minerals Ltd., a Quebec-based junior miner, said most of its $9.1 million in cash is in similar ABCP products. One note matured last week and was not repaid, it said. The rest mature later this week.

Last week, Redcorp Ventures Ltd. issued a statementsaying itparked $102.2 million in July in Coventree-managed notes with names likeRocket Trust, Comet Trust andStructured InvestmentTrust.

The notes came due on Monday and Tuesday "but were not paid and remain outstanding," it said.

Calgary-based technology company Westaim Corporation said last week it has $19.7 million in ABCP that matures over the next two months. It said it has "sufficient non-ABCP cash and liquid investments to continue operations well into the first quarter of 2008."

On Tuesday, the CEOs of the big six banks said they would"work together to ensure that markets for bank-sponsored asset backed commercial paper (ABCP) continue to perform satisfactorily."

And last week, a consortium of major financial institutionspledged to support the struggling commercial paper market by agreeing to extend the maturities ofshort-term, third-party, asset-backed commercial paper.