{"id":19064,"date":"2020-07-23T15:30:14","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T19:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.benefitscanada.com\/news\/cirques-adventure-may-end-badly-for-quebec-institutional-investors-148228"},"modified":"2020-07-23T15:30:14","modified_gmt":"2020-07-23T19:30:14","slug":"cirques-adventure-may-end-badly-for-quebec-institutional-investors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2020\/07\/23\/cirques-adventure-may-end-badly-for-quebec-institutional-investors\/","title":{"rendered":"Cirque\u2019s adventure may end badly for Quebec institutional investors"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Canadian Press<\/span> | July 23, 2020 <\/p>\n

The purchase offer for Cirque du Soleil from its secured creditors risks eliminating Quebec\u2019s longstanding presence as a shareholder and causing losses of tens of millions of dollars to two of the province\u2019s largest institutional investors.<\/p>\n

A US$1.2-billion takeover proposal by a group of debt holders, which was approved on Friday as the benchmark bid for a court-supervised auction of the insolvent entertainment giant, would push aside the trio of current stakeholders: Quebec\u2019s pension fund manager, the Texan fund TPG Capital and the Chinese firm Fosun.<\/p>\n

Read: Caisse part of consortium bidding to acquire Cirque du Soleil assets<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Caisse de d\u00e9p\u00f4t et placement du Qu\u00e9bec estimated in its most recent annual report that its initial 10 per cent stake, bought in 2015, was worth between $50 million and $100 million as of Dec. 31. It scooped up another 10 per cent chunk in February<\/a> from co-founder Guy Laliberte, who sold off his remaining shares just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit North America.<\/p>\n

Court documents filed under the Companies\u2019 Creditors Arrangement Act also show that the Caisse and Quebec\u2019s Fonds de solidarit\u00e9 FTQ each lent Cirque US$30 million last year.<\/p>\n

The Fonds confirmed recently it doesn\u2019t expect to see that money again, while the Caisse declined on Monday to disclose how much cash it stands to lose if the takeover bid goes ahead.<\/p>\n

Read: Caisse adds to Cirque de Soleil investment, converts Bombardier shares to Alstom<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

While the proposal includes a commitment to keep Cirque\u2019s head office in Montreal for at least five years, the province\u2019s role as a stakeholder dating back to the launch of the signature Quebec brand in 1984 would vanish.<\/p>\n

Rival bidders will have until Aug. 18 to submit an alternative to the latest proposal, which dismisses the purchase agreement first entered into between Cirque and its current owners. An auction will take place on Aug. 25 if necessary, with the transaction expected to close by Sept. 30.<\/p>\n

Read: Caisse helps fund acquisition by Cirque de Soleil<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Read the full article at BenefitsCanada.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Canadian Press | July 23, 2020 The purchase offer for Cirque du Soleil from its secured creditors risks eliminating Quebec\u2019s longstanding presence as a shareholder and causing losses of tens of millions of dollars to...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19064"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}