720434 N.B.: what the Caisse leaves, building by building

The last building to go was 35 McKnight Street in Fredericton, 45 apartments whose elevator, the receiver wrote in June, "is past its useful life and has frequent breakdowns," and whose balconies had been "deemed unsafe due to a combination of age and poor design," so that tenants were told to stay off them. The sale had been approved in November 2024. Because the second-mortgage lenders appealed it, the receiver's operation of the building "extended for an additional 19 months (and counting), through two winter seasons," and the receiver understands the buyer's financing expired in the meantime, so that after the appeal was dismissed the buyer had to reapply, per the receiver's letter of June 25, 2026 to the lenders' counsel, reproduced in the Supplement to the Ninth Report of the Receiver, July 10, 2026, App. "C", pp. 2–3.

The buyer, Property Investment Atlantic Ltd., which had since amalgamated with Colpitts Property Group Ltd., asked for a month's extension of the June 5 closing and closed on July 6, 2026. "With the closing of the sale of the McKnight Property transaction, the Receiver has fully realized on all the Company's Property for the benefit of creditors," Grant Thornton Limited told the court four days later. The nine properties brought in $18,945,000 gross, per the Supplement to the Ninth Report of the Receiver, July 10, 2026, paras. 4–6; App. "D", note 5. What remains is the part the first mortgagee, Caisse Populaire Acadienne Ltée, does not take, and the first to ask for it are the lenders who tried to stop the sale.

Eight second mortgages and a plan that came late

720434 N.B. Inc. owned five apartment buildings in Amherst, Nova Scotia, and property in Fredericton, Bathurst, Shippagan and Cap-Pelé, New Brunswick, per the Supplement to the Ninth Report, July 10, 2026, para. 22. The March 2024 rent roll counted 225 units, 27 of them vacant, per the Supplement to the Pre-Filing Report of the Proposed Receiver, Apr. 8, 2024, para. 8(c). The Caisse held first mortgages on all nine properties and was owed about $16,000,000 when it applied for a receiver in April 2024. Eight of the properties also carried second mortgages securing eight loans arranged through Canada's Mortgage Choice; "Each loan was from a different group of lenders, mostly individuals investing their retirement savings," the Court of Appeal wrote. The mortgages were in good standing until early 2023, when the company began defaulting and sought refinancing, per the Court of Appeal reasons, 2026 NBCA 13, Feb. 12, 2026, paras. 11–13. The loan lists in the lenders' own affidavit show many of them lending through RRSPs, TFSAs and locked-in accounts held with Olympia Trust, per the Affidavit of Kyle Ford, Oct. 29, 2024, paras. 6, 10.

Justice Darrell Stephenson appointed Grant Thornton as receiver on April 15, 2024. By the receiver's estimate at August 1, 2024, the company owed $26.7 million: $667,187 in property taxes, $16,030,271 to the Caisse, $5,758,241 to the second mortgage holders, $3,997,733 on unsecured promissory notes and $252,672 to trade creditors, per the Ninth Report of the Receiver, May 25, 2026, paras. 1, 20.

The receiver approached 273 potential bidders; 50 signed non-disclosure agreements and 21 bids came in by the August 21, 2024 deadline. On September 4 it accepted three, from MS Acadia Inc., Property Investment Atlantic Ltd. and Goji Properties Inc. The lenders had backed a plan by two of the company's directors, Leslie and Clifford Collard, to refinance through their company, Collard Properties Inc., with money from Peakhill Capital Inc.; Collard Properties instead applied for protection under the CCAA. Days before the November 5, 2024 approval hearing, the lenders put forward a revised plan: a company owned by Kyle Ford, the Canada's Mortgage Choice agent who swore their affidavit, would pay out the Caisse with Peakhill financing, take every property, discharge the second mortgages and pay unsecured creditors 5% of their initial investment, per the 2026 NBCA 13, paras. 4–5, 18–22, 24, 28.

The motion judge approved the receiver's three sales on November 6, 2024. Among his findings, as the Court of Appeal set them out, was that refusing them in favour of the revised plan "would make a mockery of the Court-approved sales process," per 2026 NBCA 13, para. 32(e). The receiver then moved to quash the lenders' appeal for want of leave. The Court of Appeal dismissed that motion on May 1, 2025, holding in reasons delivered July 10 that the "property involved" in the appeal exceeded $10,000 in value and that the appellants did not need leave, per the Court of Appeal reasons, 2025 NBCA 83, July 10, 2025, p. 2 and paras. 1, 4. The appeal itself was heard on September 11, 2025 and dismissed on February 12, 2026, with $2,500 in costs to the receiver payable from the estate. "Without disclosing any confidential information contained in the sealed portion of the record, the $16,000,000 bid is not higher than the amounts accepted by the receiver," Justice Robichaud wrote for the court, and the late offer was "so conditional and unrealistic" that it could not be considered a superior bid, per 2026 NBCA 13, paras. 52–53, 68.

Through July 7, 2026, the receiver's fees and expenses came to about $664,000 and those of its counsel, McInnes Cooper, to about $671,000, against $412,000 and $177,000 incurred before the appeal was filed. The receiver attributes the difference to the work needed "to continue managing the 720 Properties, deal with incidental estate matters such as Clear Claim and CPI, and fully respond to the SAVO Appeal," per the Ninth Report, May 25, 2026, para. 19(g) and the Supplement to the Ninth Report, July 10, 2026, para. 32(g). Under the November 6, 2024 order, interest on the buyers' deposits and property taxes from November 1, 2024 were credited to the buyers on closing. The estate has paid $669,296 in property taxes since that date and collected $4,977,935 in rent through July 7, 2026, per the Supplement to the Ninth Report, July 10, 2026, App. "D", note 8 and Ninth Report, para. 17.

The arithmetic by property

The tender form listed all nine properties "with space to indicate the tender amount beside each one," the Court of Appeal noted, per 2026 NBCA 13, para. 15. Because bids came in property by property, the receiver can "distinguish (and therefore distribute) the net proceeds of the Transactions by property," per the Ninth Report, May 25, 2026, para. 24. The Caisse's payout statement put its balance at about $17.43 million as of June 1, 2026, with interest running at about $2,012 a day; an independent opinion from William Kean, KC, confirms, subject to standard caveats, a valid and enforceable first charge. The receiver proposed an interim distribution to the Caisse of about $17.027 million, "being the lesser of available proceeds by property and the Caisse's outstanding secured debt on the property," leaving an estimated $2,227,000, per the Ninth Report, paras. 21–24.

In the receiver's table, five properties sold for more than the Caisse's debt on them: 9 rue Butte-à-Éloi in Cap-Pelé by $976,130, College Street in Bathurst by $743,580, Shippagan by $147,700, 21 Dickey Street by $34,873 and 80 Rupert Street by $15,802. Four sold for less: 15 Dickey Street by $179,425, 35 McKnight by $138,131, Donald Avenue by $76,064 and 10 Dickey Street by $6,735. The receiver asked for a claims process because the second mortgage holders "are comprised of numerous individuals whose security interests differ across the 720 Properties and who were collectively owed approximately $5.7 million as of June 30, 2024," per the Ninth Report, paras. 21, 25.