Usually, when brokers find a buyer for a property listed via a court-ordered sale, they announce the court date to allow other parties to submit any competing offers they may have. Those offers are then presented to the court at the hearing and the judge approves one of the offers.
The sale of Richmond’s Versante Hotel was far more dramatic, according to Hart Buck and Jennifer Darling, two Vancouver-based commercial real estate brokers with Colliers who have been involved in numerous court-ordered sales.
The Versante Hotel is a 100-room luxury boutique hotel rising 14 storeys at 8499 Bridgeport Road in Richmond, not too far from Vancouver International Airport. Part of a three-tower mixed-use development called the International Trade Centre, the hotel opened in 2021 and was a finalist for two BC Hotel Association awards in 2023.
The Versante Hotel was first listed for sale in April 2024, as first revealed by Storeys, after a foreclosure proceeding was initiated against it in January 2024 by Fox Island Development Ltd. and Advanced Venture Holdings Co. Ltd. pertaining to a loan agreement the two sides entered into in June 2021. The foreclosure was granted by the Supreme Court of British Columbia on February 29, 2024, at which point the outstanding debt was at $79.7 million, with interest still accruing thereafter.
The Versante Hotel was then listed by Avison Young for $98 million. However, no sale was secured; the lenders became concerned then-owner — Mo Yeung “Michael” Ching, through his real estate company Sunwins — was interfering with the sales process, and had the foreclosure proceeding converted into a receivership proceeding earlier this year, giving the lenders more control. The property was then re-listed by Buck and Darling alongside Colliers’ Toronto-based hotels team on an unpriced basis.
By late July, 68 parties showed interest by signing confidentiality agreements and 11 progressed to the point of touring the property. Two ultimately made offers and one of them was chosen by the lender and receiver. However, that buyer, which has not been disclosed in court documents, later pulled their offer on August 18, citing the Cowichan Tribes ruling that introduced uncertainty around land ownership and has become a hot-button topic in recent weeks.
However, two more offers were found, one of which was a $48 million bid from a company named Citation Property Holdings Ltd., which court documents state is an affiliate of Hong Kong-based private credit investment management firm Pacific Aegis Capital Management. That bid was set to be presented to the court on October 24, but the drama began the day before — the last call for bids.
“They stood up part-way through the morning of submissions and said ‘I have a bank draft, I have an offer with me I’d like to submit,’ Darling, who witnessed the drama first-hand, told Western Investor. “Justice Fitzpatrick came back at the end of the day and said ‘Okay, if you’re still interested, be here tomorrow, we’re going to go to a live auction.’”
“The process was formally over when Madame Justice Fitzpatrick looked at the new bidder and said, ‘Are you prepared to bid again?’ That bidder said, ‘My last was my final, I’m not increasing my bid,’ and that was that,” said Buck.
Silverport’s refusal to raise its bid paved the way for Citation to buy the property.
The live auction lasted less than 10 minutes. In his forty years of experience, the only other time Buck has seen a live auction was about 30 years ago in Nanaimo.
“It’s something we very infrequently see,” said Darling. “It’s something the lawyers were all excited about because it was definitely more exciting than what our normal process is with sealed bids and envelopes going up. … A lot of very experienced insolvency lawyers in that room had never seen it happen either. … Even we can be surprised sometimes.”
The final sale price for the Versante Hotel was $51.5 million, still significantly less than the outstanding debt but 7 per cent above the original bid presented to the court.
The transaction is set to close on December 10.
