A similar incident stemmed from the 1992 privatization of Alberta Government Telephones (AGT). NovaTel, a cellular subsidiary of AGT, had made a number of financing deals with local companies in the late 1980s, and many of these deals were collapsing just as the government was prepared to sell AGT. At the last moment, the government removed NovaTel from the AGT share offering. NovaTel's liabilities eventually cost the government more than $600 million.
