{"id":58789,"date":"2025-04-21T13:29:22","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T13:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/2025\/04\/21\/canadian-history-to-go-on-the-block-as-hudsons-bay-unwinds-its-empire\/"},"modified":"2025-04-21T13:29:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T13:29:22","slug":"canadian-history-to-go-on-the-block-as-hudsons-bay-unwinds-its-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/2025\/04\/21\/canadian-history-to-go-on-the-block-as-hudsons-bay-unwinds-its-empire\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian history to go on the block as Hudson&#039;s Bay unwinds its empire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital\/financialpost\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/hbc2-0421-ph.jpg\" title=\"The Hudson's Bay crest on its flagship store in Toronto. The beleaguered retailer is seeking approval to sell its artifacts through a separate auction.\n\n\" alt=\"The Hudson's Bay crest on its flagship store in Toronto. The beleaguered retailer is seeking approval to sell its artifacts through a separate auction.\n\n\" data-portal-copyright=\"Jack Boland\/Toronto Sun\/Postmedia Network\" data-has-syndication-rights=\"1\" data-license-id=\"3832688\" \/><\/p>\n<p>                    <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Canada&#039;s housing market softest in decades\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vvS36tVTaTQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n                    <\/iframe><\/p>\n<p> Hudson\u2019s Bay Co.<\/p>\n<p>                 wants to appoint a legal representative and create a &ldquo;hardship fund&rdquo; to <\/p>\n<p>                support its employees<\/p>\n<p>                , as <\/p>\n<p>                Canada\u2019s oldest department store<\/p>\n<p>                 gradually closes its shops and <\/p>\n<p>                lays off more workers<\/p>\n<p>                 in the coming weeks as it tries to pay back about $1 billion to its creditors. <\/p>\n<p> The company, which employs more than 9,000 people, has sent termination letters to 272 corporate employees and anticipates further reductions, it said in a court document dated April 17. <\/p>\n<p> Most employees won&rsquo;t receive severance payments, but workers may get money through the federal Wage Earner Protection Program Act or if HBC manages to recover a &ldquo;sufficient&rdquo; amount of money to pay back its unsecured creditors, the document said. <\/p>\n<p> To &ldquo;alleviate some of the difficulties associated with the termination of certain benefits,&rdquo; HBC is in talks with a two&nbsp;lenders to start a hardship fund that can provide financial assistance to its current and former employees, it said. <\/p>\n<p> HBC is also seeking court approval to appoint Toronto-based law firm Ursel Phillips Fellows Hopkinson LLP as a legal representative to support the interests of both its current and former employees, which would &ldquo;contribute to overall cost savings&rdquo; and streamlining by &ldquo;serving as a single point of contact&rdquo; between employees, HBC and the court, the company said. <\/p>\n<p> Hiring a legal representative for employees during complicated restructurings is a common practice. HBC&rsquo;s proposed law firm has previously represented workers at Nordstrom Canada, Sears Canada Inc. and Air Canada. <\/p>\n<p> &ldquo;Ursel Phillips Fellows Hopkinson LLP has extensive experience representing large groups of employees and former employees in matters involving employment-based claims,&rdquo; HBC chief financial officer Jennifer Bewley said in the court document. <\/p>\n<p> HBC is also trying to get its proposal to sell its artifacts through a separate auction approved. <\/p>\n<p> The company&rsquo;s collection has more than 1,700 pieces of art and more than 2,700 artifacts that &ldquo;<\/p>\n<p>                reflect the rich heritage and cultural legacy of the company<\/p>\n<p>                ,&rdquo; it said. Among them is the Royal Charter, a document that gave the company exclusive trading rights over a portion of Canada in 1670. <\/p>\n<p>            <\/p>\n<p> A separate auction would make the sale of the art collection more transparent and help ensure that &ldquo;all laws and regulations in respect of Canadian heritage and cultural property are adhered to,&rdquo; Adam Zalev, cofounder of Reflect Advisors LLC, HBC&rsquo;s financial adviser, said in the court document. <\/p>\n<p> Several parties, such as government institutions, museums, universities and high-net-worth individuals, have expressed interest in HBC&rsquo;s art collection, he said. Some have also asked that the art collection be made available for public viewing in a museum or other public institution. The auction is expected to take place before June 30. <\/p>\n<p> Even so, some historians and analysts are concerned that Canadian organizations may not be able to afford these culturally significant artifacts and that they may end up going abroad. <\/p>\n<p> &ldquo;(The Royal Charter) is an object of national significance, so it would be nice if it could be acquired by a public collection,&rdquo; Carl Benn, a history professor at Toronto Metropolitan University who previously worked at museums for more than three decades, said. &ldquo;Although the cost might be prohibitive.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p> He said a big issue in Canada is that most public museums and archives don&rsquo;t have enough money to go after the things they should be going after. <\/p>\n<p> &ldquo;It would be best if (HBC) actually just donated the charter to Library Archives Canada,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But I can understand how the legalities and the context of the company going bankrupt are leading it to send something to auction.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p> Benn said there are laws that prevent the export of such valuable artifacts for a certain period of time in case a foreign buyer purchases it, but he hopes a major Canadian institution can buy it. <\/p>\n<p> Retail analyst Bruce Winder said HBC&rsquo;s auction would be a unique event in the retail sector, so it will be &ldquo;interesting&rdquo; to see how it plays out. <\/p>\n<p> &ldquo;There&rsquo;s going to be some sensitivity around it because these artifacts are going to be seen as very Canadian,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s going to be some public scrutiny about who buys the artifacts and whether they remain in Canada.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<ul class=\"related_links\">\n<li>April 30 deadline looms: What&#8217;s next for Hudson&#8217;s Bay?<\/li>\n<li>HBC&#8217;s restructuring plan opposed by employees, joint-venture partner RioCan<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> Separately, Patrick Shea, a lawyer at Gowling WLG (Canada) LLP and a former member of the Canadian Forces, along with a group of businesspeople and former members of the military, is trying to ensure that Second World War memorials at HBC stores in downtown Calgary and Toronto are protected. <\/p>\n<p> &ldquo;I am concerned that they may get lost in the shuffle because they have no economic value,&rdquo; he said of the plaques that combined have the names of about 100 young men who were killed during the war. &ldquo;I have written to the Hudson Bay, asking them to preserve the memorials and to ensure that they end up in a proper place.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p> <em>\u2022 Email: nkarim@postmedia.com <\/em> <\/p>\n<p> <em><strong>Bookmark our website and support our journalism:<\/strong> Don\u2019t miss the business news you need to know \u2014 add financialpost.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n<br \/>Canadian history to go on the block as Hudson&#039;s Bay unwinds its empire<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>2025-04-21 13:29:22<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hudson\u2019s Bay Co. wants to appoint a legal representative and create a &ldquo;hardship fund&rdquo; to support its employees , as Canada\u2019s oldest department store gradually closes its shops and lays&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-58789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/58790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}