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

An Ontario court has ruled against a B.C. billionaire who spent the summer fighting to move into former Hudson’s Bay properties.

Superior Court Judge Peter Osborne says landlords for the properties do not have to accept Ruby Liu as a tenant.

Osborne say he largely agrees with landlords who doubted Liu could meet the obligations of the leases she wanted.

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.

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.

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.

Earlier this year, Liu announced her intention to buy dozens of leases from the Bay to open a new department store chain named after herself. She said she planned to spend $400 milllion on opening the new chain, but a lawyer for Bay landlord KingSett Capital says that money is “non-existent.”

Matthew Gottlieb says Liu won’t personally guarantee that $400 million and much of her remaining money is tied up in three international companies that haven’t signed binding commitments to back her new venture.

While she’s said the three B.C. malls she owns can be a source of funding, Gottlieb says Woodgrove Centre in Nanaimo, Mayfair Shopping Centre in Victoria and Tsawwassen Mills in Delta have collectively lost about $19 million in 2023 and 2024.

If her other companies had collected interest on loans they made to the malls, Gottlieb says the shopping centres would be insolvent.