It's not like anyone is trying to give the impression that Teck is in danger of becoming insolvent.

But they can only take on so much debt. I'm sure Don Lindsay still has heart palpitations when he thinks back to 2008 when Teck was teetering on the brink. Yeah, Teck ultimately did come out of it even stronger but it could easily have gone differently. I can't imagine Lindsay will let the the company get anywhere near that deep ever again.

From a Globe and Mail Q&A in 2010:

What was your darkest moment in the latest crash?

We knew what was happening. We were amazed, on Sept. 30, 2008, that the banks still lent us the money [to buy Fording]... even though Lehman Brothers had gone down, Citibank had been saved, and Goldman and Morgan Stanley had been converted [to banks]to save them.

We had a fiduciary obligation to do everything we could to close the deal, which we did. Then, you knew you were in for a very tough time. So you move into action; you go full out. You don't have time to have a dark moment.

When did it hit home?

Between Christmas and New Year's that year. I was up at our cabin. I'm a single dad with two young girls and I put the girls to bed and I was alone, just staring at the fire, thinking, "Oh my God, what have I done? How am I going to get out of this one?" That was probably the darkest day, when you know you put the plan in place but you don't know if it is really going to work. I had time to reflect and go, "Wow, this is going to be tough."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/careers-leadership/tecks-don-lindsay-weathers-the-storm/article1388247/?page=all