Canada’s two major communications companies are grappling with tough decisions about their futures as one firm deals with a founder’s death while the other faces a possible collapse of a buyout deal reports the New York Times.

Rogers Communications, Canada’s largest wireless carrier and biggest cable television operator, must find a successor to its founder and chief executive, Edward S. Rogers Jr., who died on Tuesday.

At the same time, Rogers Communications’ once much more powerful rival, Bell Canada, faces an almost certain collapse of a proposal to take it private through what would have been the world’s largest leveraged buyout. The $50 billion deal, which expires next week, has foundered after accountants cast doubt on its impact on the company’s solvency.

To read this New York Times article in full, see nytimes.com/2008/12/03/business/worldbusiness/03tycoon.html.