CanWest Global’s $2.3-billion takeover bid for Alliance Atlantis Communications will not close in May as expected, because the latter needs more time to get its paperwork in order, pushing the closing date to late July or early August.

Alliance needs to provide ‘more current unaudited financial statements’ and other information relating to the first fiscal quarters of 2006 and ’07, according to a Wednesday press release. The data will not be available until late June.

AAC has, however, moved up its annual shareholder meeting in Toronto to April 5 from June, which would have been too close to the completion of the arrangement, it says.

Winnipeg-based CanWest and U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs, its partner in the venture, announced their takeover of Toronto-based Alliance in January, after the company was put up for sale in December. Global recently upped its proposed stake in AAC by 29%.

Its interest in the deal is AAC’s lucrative TV broadcasting division, which consists of 13 specialty channels, whereas Goldman Sachs will purchase AAC’s Motion Picture Distribution, to be run by a Canadian partner, and CBS will take over international sales of the CSI franchise. The deal must be approved by the Competition Bureau and CRTC.