Evergrande’s iconic Canadian hotel to be sold after default

China Evergrande Group’s famous log-cabin hotel in Quebec, Canada, has been placed in receivership after the defaulted real estate developer failed to make payments on its debt.\nFairmont Le Chateau Montebello, which has hosted luminaries including Grace Kelly and Margaret Thatcher, would be put up for sale by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, the court-appointed receiver, according to documents filed this week on the accounting firm’s website.\nEvergrande’s collapse was by far the biggest in a property crisis that dragged down China’s economic growth for years and led to a record spate of distress among developers. The company, which first defaulted in 2021, was once the country’s largest developer by sales.\nThe firm’s insolvent subsidiary, Millennium Golden Jiachen Hotel Holdings, owes C$58 million (US$41 million) to creditors, including C$11 million to an affiliate of Desjardins Group. The Canadian lender filed a motion to put the hotel up for sale, according to court documents.\nThe 95-year-old hotel will remain open during the sale process. Billing itself as the world’s largest log cabin, the resort opened as a private club in the depths of the Great Depression and is now managed by Accor’s Fairmont Hotels and Resorts.\nThe hotel, with more than 211 rooms and suites, is located 134km west of Montreal and includes an 18-hole golf course, a spa and a conference centre. Evergrande bought it in 2014 from Oxford Properties Group, a unit of the Omers pension plan.\nQuebec’s Superior Court appointed Philippe Jordan, a partner with PwC, to act as receiver earlier this month. The insolvency process was first reported by the Journal de Montreal.\n“We are currently taking the necessary steps to contact stakeholders, including Millennium and Accor,” Jordan said in a phone interview. “Ultimately, the action plan will include putting the hotel up for sale.”\nLast week, liquidators for the delisted China Evergrande Group asked “selected bidders” to submit offers by the end of the month for a property-management unit they have been seeking to sell, according to a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange.\nThe deadline for the offer, as well as identifying bidders for China Evergrande’s stake in Evergrande Property Services (EPS), came as creditors sought to recover assets from the Guangzhou-based developer, which collapsed under the weight of more than US$300 billion in liabilities.\n