Retailer Le Château is seeking court protection from its creditors while it winds down its operations and liquidates its assets.
The Montreal-based fashion chain with 123 locations across Canada and 1,400 employees said in a release Friday that it has applied for protection from its creditors under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, or CCAA.
In a release, management said it had “come to the very difficult decision that the company can no longer continue its operations as a going concern after having used its best efforts over the preceding months, with the assistance of professional advisers, to refinance or sell the company to a third party that would continue operating the business.”
The chain said the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has had an “evident impact on consumer demand for Le Château’s holiday party and occasion wear, which represents the core of our offering [and] has diminished Le Château’s ability to pursue its activities. Regrettably, these circumstances leave the company with no option other than to commence the liquidation process.”
The retailer was scheduled to have its annual general meeting in Montreal on Thursday but abruptly cancelled the event two days prior without explanation beyond saying that the company “will provide further updates in due course.”
In the three-month period up until July 25, Le Château racked up just $14.7 million in sales across its network of stores and online. That’s down from almost $50 million in the same period last year. As of July, the company says it had about $118 million in assets, against $201 million worth of liabilities.
At the time, the chain thanked its landlords for granting it $4.6 million worth of rent relief for July and August. Despite that, it still warned there was some doubt about the chain’s “ability to continue as a going concern for the next 12 months.”
The chain is just the latest Canadian retail brand to file for CCAA amid COVID-19, including clothier Reitmans, drink seller DavidsTea, outdoor gear sellers MEC and Sail, fashion chain Mendocino, the company that owns Ricki’s Cleo and Bootlegger, and shoe retailer Aldo.
Fashion journalist Jeanne Beker says the chain has fallen on tough times of late, but for many years Le Château was at the vanguard of Canada’s fashion industry. (Peter Power/CBC)
The CCAA proceedings will mean Le Château will soon begin the process of selling off all its remaining merchandise and shutting stores. It brings an end to the chain’s 60-year history and an end to a Canadian brand that was at various points at the top of Canada’s fashion world, fashion journalist Jeanne Beker said.
Founded in 1960 in Montreal, the chain was a major driver of what Beker calls the “youthquake” in fashion at the time, when all of a sudden children didn’t want to wear the clothes their parents got for them, and instead establish a style of their own.
“Le Château was at the vanguard of all that,” Beker said in an interview Friday. “Le Château was the hip place where you went to get the hip cool styles — a lot of styles that had not been that readily available in Canada before … at a price that was affordable, too.”
While COVID-19 seems to have been “the final nail in their coffin,” as Beker puts it, the chain had problems before, as it struggled to keep up with not only the capricious nature of fashion but also a growing movement toward sustainability in supply chains.
“Fashion has changed in a big way. The way that we consume fashion has changed, the way we buy it, the way we wear it — all those things have changed,” Beker said. “It was only a matter of time.”
LISTEN — Jeanne Beker explains what Le Château has meant to Canada’s fashion landscape
8:56Jeanne Beker on Le Château
Fashion journalist Jeanne Beker says the chain that’s seeking court protection from its creditors was on the vanguard of Canadian fashion for many years before falling on tough times. 8:56
Young people who once would have been the chain’s target demographic “are marching to the beat of a whole new drummer now,” she said.
“They don’t want the cheap and cheerful [thing to] wear for a season or two.”
“Value Village … that’s the hip thing to do, not to buy a prom dress at Le Château.”
CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. has lowered the estimated cost of its Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico.
It says it now expects the project to cost between US$3.9 billion and US$4.1 billion compared with its original estimate of US$4.5 billion.
The change came as the company reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of C$1.46 billion or $1.40 per share compared with a loss of C$197 million or 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totalled C$4.08 billion, up from C$3.94 billion in the third quarter of 2023.
TC Energy says its comparable earnings for its latest quarter amounted to C$1.03 per share compared with C$1.00 per share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
BCE Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter as it recorded $2.11 billion in asset impairment charges, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties.
The company says its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $640 million or 70 cents per share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, BCE says it earned 75 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 81 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
“Bell’s results for the third quarter demonstrate that we are disciplined in our pursuit of profitable growth in an intensely competitive environment,” BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said in a statement.
“Our focus this quarter, and throughout 2024, has been to attract higher-margin subscribers and reduce costs to help offset short-term revenue impacts from sustained competitive pricing pressures, slow economic growth and a media advertising market that is in transition.”
Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in its third quarter of 2023.
BCE also said it now expects its revenue for 2024 to fall about 1.5 per cent compared with earlier guidance for an increase of zero to four per cent.
The company says the change comes as it faces lower-than-anticipated wireless product revenue and sustained pressure on wireless prices.
BCE added 33,111 net postpaid mobile phone subscribers, down 76.8 per cent from the same period last year, which was the company’s second-best performance on the metric since 2010.
It says the drop was driven by higher customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — amid greater competitive activity and promotional offer intensity. BCE’s monthly churn rate for the category was 1.28 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent during its previous third quarter.
The company also saw 11.6 per cent fewer gross subscriber activations “due to more targeted promotional offers and mobile device discounting compared to last year.”
Bell’s wireless mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.26, down 3.4 per cent from $60.28 in the third quarter of the prior year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. trimmed its financial guidance as it reported its second-quarter revenue fell compared with a year ago.
The luxury clothing company says revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 29 totalled $267.8 million, down from $281.1 million in the same quarter last year.
Net income attributable to shareholders amounted to $5.4 million or six cents per diluted share, up from $3.9 million or four cents per diluted share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, Canada Goose says it earned five cents per diluted share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 16 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
In its outlook, Canada Goose says it now expects total revenue for its full financial year to show a low-single-digit percentage decrease to low-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a low-single-digit increase.
It also says it now expects its adjusted net income per diluted share to show a mid-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a percentage increase in the mid-teens.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
