B.C. billionaire Ruby Liu loses court fight to take over Hudson's Bay properties

A B.C. billionaire who spent the summer fighting to move into former Hudson’s Bay properties found herself on the losing end of an Ontario Superior Court decision on Friday.

Judge Peter Osborne ruled that landlords for the collapsed retailer will not be forced to accept Ruby Liu as a tenant.

In his judgment, Osborne said he had “significant concerns” about Liu’s ability to meet the terms of the leases she wanted.

HBC declined to comment on his decision, while a spokesperson for Liu did not immediately respond to messages from The Canadian Press. Both parties have the ability to appeal the decision, though neither has announced plans to.

Major landlords including Cadillac Fairview, Oxford Properties and Ivanhoé Cambridge were opposed to Liu buying 25 former Hudson's Bay leases for $69.1 million.

Osborne’s decision was months in the making and came after he waded through 25,600 pages of arguments from a who’s who of commercial landlords and investors.

It was back in March that Hudson’s Bay, riddled with $1.1 billion in debt, filed for creditor protection. Unable to find a buyer, it later liquidated its 80 stores and 16 more from Saks, and then turned its attention to assets such as its leases, intellectual property and art.

A lease-bidding process netted a dozen bids for 39 properties. YM Inc., which owns mall brands like Bluenotes, took five for $5.03 million. A landlord took one for $20,000.

But the biggest bid came from Liu, who dreamed of opening a new department store chain named after herself. She wanted up to 28 leases to accomplish the feat and in May, the Bay announced it was willing to sell them to her.

Three of them easily won court approval because they were at properties in B.C. malls Liu owns — Woodgrove Centre, Mayfair Shopping Centre and Tsawwassen Mills.

The remaining 25 became one of the most hotly contested issues in the Bay’s winddown. Almost as soon as the Bay announced they’d sell the leases to Liu for $69.1 million, landlords met with her and came away with a wide array of objections.

Most said they found her unprepared. They said she had no business plan, and a team of inexperienced executives who had spent time as real estate agents and early child educators rather than retail leaders. Furthermore, they said that Liu's plans for dining, entertainment and recreation weren’t allowed under the leases she wanted to take over.

When Liu did produce a business plan, it estimated she could have at least 20 of her stores renovated — from the rundown state the Bay left them in — and operating within 180 days of signing leases.

Landlords thought the timeline was unachievable and argued her $400 million budget for the project — money they doubted she had readily available because her malls were $19 million in debt over the last two years — also wouldn’t suffice.