Ruby Liu Court Blow Leaves Future Of 25 Hudson’s Bay Stores In Doubt

Real estate mogul Ruby Liu has failed in her bid to create a new national department store Chain. (Nick Lachance/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Toronto Star via Getty Images

Real estate mogul Ruby Liu’s bid to take over the leases of 25 former Hudson’s Bay Company locations was rejected Friday by a Canadian bankruptcy court, persuaded by the near-unanimous objections of the defunct department store’s former landlords.

The Ontario Superior Court ruled that Liu’s company, Central Walk, failed to meet the financial and operational requirements to assume 25 of the 28 retail leases she had sought.

Liu, a Chinese-Canadian property magnate, had aimed to transform the shuttered Hudson’s Bay sites into a new department store chain under her own name and her proposals, valued at more than $120 million, promised to bring a new era of experiential retail. However, the court’s decision has effectively ended a daring retail revival.

Each of the landlords “objects to being forced into a long-term commercial relationship with a tenant to whom they never agreed to lease their properties,” Justice Peter Osborne wrote in his decision, adding that “the proposed lease assignments are not approved.”

The ruling largely mirrored the landlords’ concerns about Liu’s capacity to launch a new national department store chain and fulfill the obligations outlined under the leases.

In court filings, some of Canada’s largest pension funds — including the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation — lined up in opposition to Liu’s bid. They argued that her proposal to assume the leases and launch a new chain had little chance of success and would likely breach lease terms.

Ruby Liu Mall Empire

Liu is the chair of Central Walk, a British Columbia-based real-estate group that owns major Canadian shopping destinations including Tsawwassen Mills in Delta, Woodgrove Centre in Nanaimo, and Mayfair Shopping Centre in Victoria.

Her business empire has focused on transforming traditional malls into lifestyle hubs that combine shopping, entertainment and leisure and her move into retail seemed a natural extension of her approach.

However, despite initial approval for three Hudson’s Bay stores located within malls already owned by Central Walk, Liu’s broader expansion quickly met resistance. Liu retains control of three approved Hudson’s Bay locations in B.C., which are expected to reopen under her brand later this year.

The court battle is a notable post-script to the long history of Hudson’s Bay, which began in 1670 as a fur-trading operation and was considered North America’s oldest corporation. That 355-year run came to an end this year when the company applied for creditor protection and then full liquidation under Canada’s Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, citing weak consumer spending, heightened U.S.–Canada trade tensions and declining downtown foot traffic.

In March a court approved the company’s plan to liquidate all but six stores and the remaining stores were ultimately included in the liquidation. By June 1, 2025 all 96 of its Canadian department store locations had closed.

Landlords Block Ruby Liu

From the landlords’ perspective, the current ruling underscores the risks they perceived in being handed over fixed long-term lease commitments tied to a new entrant with no retail track record.

With the leases not assigned to Liu, the landlords now face the question of what to do with large, predominantly city center premises previously occupied by Hudson’s Bay.

The simultaneous purchase of the Hudson’s Bay brand and intellectual-property by Canadian Tire Corporation for over $21 million — which included the brand labels and designs for the HBC Stripes, Hudson’s Bay Company, and The Bay — leaves the possibility of the brand living on in other formats, but not necessarily as full-line department stores.

The rejection of Liu’s bid signals that creditors and landlords now favor less speculative arrangements rather than an unproven operator stepping into a legacy leasebook and many will probably look at how they redevelop the former department stores as mixed use buildings.

For Liu the decision is a major setback. Her plan, as laid out in earlier filings, involved repurposing the shuttered store network by investing some $268 million to launch a new national department store chain, building on her mall background after claiming to have realised $1 billion through a 2019 sale of a mall in China.

The court’s refusal to approve the lease assignments means that for Ruby Liu path is blocked for now.