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

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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.

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

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While no one immediately announced plans to appeal the decision, the losing side could seek to overturn the outcome.

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

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

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They painted Liu as an inexperienced retail entrepreneur and said her plan to open at least 20 spaces within 180 days of getting leases was unrealistic.

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Liu maintained the three malls she owns prove she has what it takes to launch a new department store and said landlords were battling her because she’s an “outsider” and not their preferred tenant.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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When she 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.