'Deeply flawed': Cadillac Fairview slams Ruby Liu's bid for Hudson's Bay stores | Daily Hive

'Deeply flawed': Cadillac Fairview slams Ruby Liu's takeover bid of Hudson's Bay store leases

Hudson's Bay at CF Toronto Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto. (Kenneth Chan)

Cadillac Fairview (CF), one of Canada’s largest commercial real estate landlords, is urging the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to reject the proposed assignment of 25 former Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) leases to Central Walk, a company owned by Vancouver entrepreneur Ruby Liu (Weihong Liu).

In a strongly worded court filing dated July 22, 2025, CF warns that the transaction could saddle landlords with a risky long-term tenant and expose them to hundreds of millions of dollars in potential losses.

The growing dispute with Central Walk’s owner has become a high-profile part of the permanently shuttered department store chain’s full unwinding under the ongoing Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) proceedings.

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HBC signed an asset purchase agreement (APA) with Liu’s company on May 23 but has yet to seek formal court approval for 25 of the 28 properties identified.

CF argues that despite having two months to prepare, HBC has failed to provide landlords with critical information — including Liu’s full APA, business plans, and financial forecasts — leaving them unable to properly respond.

“The Landlords are entitled to a fair opportunity to respond to the motion, and one that is proportionate to the scale of the issues,” CF states in its filing, emphasizing that it is “resolutely opposed” to Liu’s company taking over the leases.

“The prospective losses for CF alone are in the hundreds of millions of dollars.”

CF also claims that since a failed meeting with Liu on June 2 — where no business plan was presented — there has been virtually no meaningful communication from either HBC or Liu’s representatives.

Instead, CF states it has learned more about Liu’s plans for the former HBC stores through news media reports and social media than from any official legal disclosures.

Liu intends to make significant investments to open a new modernized chain of Canadian department stores, with some news media reports suggesting that she wants to name them “Ruby Liu,” after herself. As well, earlier this month, the Canadian Press reported a court hearing on the lease deals was adjourned early, as the judge found it problematic that Liu represented herself in court without a lawyer.

Despite court direction that the matter be handled expeditiously, CF’s new court filing accuses the applicants of procedural delay and calls for a revised timeline that preserves a Sept. 11 hearing date, but demands earlier submission of motion materials and adequate time for cross-examinations and expert analysis.

It warns that a condensed timetable would unfairly benefit the applicants, who have had months to prepare, while forcing landlords to respond without the necessary facts.

The court-appointed monitor overseeing HBC’s restructuring had proposed a compressed hearing schedule, but CF has submitted its own alternative timetable that bumps up the next few procedural deadlines by a few days. CF also requests at least three weeks to prepare a full response, which could include expert reports and the cross-examination of up to a dozen witnesses — some of whom may require Mandarin interpretation.

To date, Liu has been seen conducting interviews with news media in Mandarin with an interpreter at hand.

“The Applicants’ lack of urgency to proceed with their motion — indicative of a motion they are not ready to bring — should not make the Landlords respond with undue haste,” argues CF’s legal team.

CF is particularly critical of the proposed Central Walk transaction’s implications for the future of major shopping centres across Canada, describing the prospective new anchor tenant as “untested” with a “deeply flawed retail concept” at 25 locations across the country.

The leases in question are long-term and would tie landlords to the new operator for decades, potentially undermining mall performance — given that the former HBC stores are anchor-sized retail spaces for these shopping centres — and negatively impacting property values.

CF maintains that any motion to assign the leases must be backed by transparent, detailed evidence and cannot be allowed to evolve mid-hearing with last-minute filings or revised offers.

Some of the former HBC stores located at CF-owned properties include CF Richmond Centre in Metro Vancouver, CF Chinook Centre and CF Market Mall in Calgary, CF Toronto Eaton Centre, CF Sherway Gardens, and CF Markville in Greater Toronto, and CF Promenades St-Bruno and CF Fairview Pointe Claire in Greater Montreal. The 25 properties in question, including the CF properties, have not been publicly disclosed yet.

In June, the court approved Liu’s acquisition of three HBC leases at B.C. properties she owns — the former Saks OFF 5th outlet store at Tsawwassen Mills mall in Delta, and the former Hudson’s Bay department stores at Woodgrove Centre in Nanaimo and Mayfair Shopping Centre in Victoria.

It was also indicated last month that the overwhelming majority of landlords had already expressed opposition to Liu’s takeover.

As the court prepares to assess the proposed transaction, the battle over the future of these key retail properties appears poised to become a major flashpoint in the full unwinding of HBC’s once-vast Canadian department store empire. All store locations permanently closed in early June.

Earlier in the CCAA process, Canadian Tire acquired HBC’s branding and intellectual trademarks.

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