Coast Appliances: the brand to Trail, the deposits split by province

Coast Appliances sold ranges and refrigerators the way kitchens get built. A homeowner chose the appliances in a showroom, paid a deposit of 10% to 50%, and waited, sometimes for months, for delivery to line up with the end of a renovation or a new build; builders and developers bought by the project and paid after delivery, less a 10% holdback. Founded in 1978 and run from Vancouver, the business had about 300 employees, none of them unionized, and 17 showrooms in five provinces, per the First Report of the Monitor, Apr. 24, 2026, paras. 2.4, 2.6–2.7, 2.13, 2.15–2.16. It also ran nine distribution centres, per the Affidavit #1 of John Gil, Apr. 16, 2026, para. 21.

When it entered the CCAA on April 17, 2026, the company held $16.8 million of customers' deposits, about $7.0 million from British Columbia and $9.8 million from the other four provinces, per the First Report of the Monitor, Apr. 24, 2026, para. 3.3. By August, what became of a customer's money depended on the province the customer lived in.

The filing came a week early. On April 14, PwC, financial adviser since October 2024 to a lending syndicate led by the Bank of Montreal, told Coast's directors that the syndicate had booked a court date for April 24. That evening the directors said they would resign in the morning, and on April 15 PwC had confirmation that the directors and the chief executive had gone, per the Pre-Filing Report of the Proposed Monitor, Apr. 17, 2026, paras. 1.2, 3.3. On April 17 Justice K. Loo of the Supreme Court of British Columbia granted the syndicate's petition, per the CCAA Initial Order, Apr. 17, 2026, p. 1, and appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. as monitor with enhanced powers to run the business, sell its property and disclaim its contracts, per the Notice of Application, Aug. 5, 2026, Part 2, para. 3. Ten days earlier a voice-phishing campaign had given attackers access to user accounts; they took data and deployed ransomware on four servers, per the Second Report of the Monitor, Aug. 4, 2026, para. 9.1.

Forbearance, amended six times

The syndicate of BMO, CIBC, Bank of Nova Scotia and ATB lent to Coast Limited Partnership, the operating entity, under a 2017 credit agreement for $80 million, a $25 million revolver and a $55 million term loan. The affidavit supporting the petition is the lender's, sworn by John Gil of BMO's Special Accounts Management Unit. It attributes the decline to the slump in new-home construction that fed the commercial division, softer retail demand, and shipping costs driven up by the conflict in the Middle East, and it names an unresolved Competition Bureau investigation into Coast's marketing since 2020, per the Affidavit #1 of John Gil, Apr. 16, 2026, paras. 1–2, 10, 13, 30, 69, 87. The First Report describes the investigation as concerning allegations of false or misleading representations about ordinary selling prices and promotion end dates, which the debtors denied. Revenue went from $287.4 million in 2023 to $240.4 million, unaudited, in 2025, with EBITDA negative in each year from 2023, per the First Report of the Monitor, Apr. 24, 2026, paras. 2.26–2.27, 2.36–2.37.

By November 2024 the borrower had breached the credit agreement's minimum trailing EBITDA covenant. A forbearance agreement followed on November 14, then six amendments between January and July 2025, most of them moving the deadline to sell the Ontario division: final bids were due March 24, 2025, then April 11, May 15, June 30 and September 15, and no sale closed. The syndicate charged forbearance fees of $50,000, $125,000, $125,000 and $250,000 along the way. A restructuring plan PwC worked on from November depended on revenue that January and February 2026 did not produce, and a search for a replacement lender brought one offer, which PwC judged not viable. The facilities matured on March 31, per the Affidavit #1 of John Gil, Apr. 16, 2026, paras. 44–65.

At February 28 the internal balance sheet showed assets of $82.3 million against liabilities of $130.0 million, among them vendor takeback notes of up to $13.3 million, subordinated and noted as unsecured, and about $13 million owed to trade suppliers, Whirlpool and LG the largest, per the First Report of the Monitor, Apr. 24, 2026, paras. 2.22, 2.25, 2.37. The syndicate was owed $68,960,900.16 at March 31, plus interest and costs. Behind it sat TriWest, the private equity investor, secured for about $17.7 million, and purchase-money lenders owed about $1.6 million (NBA, against Samsung stock) and $340,000 (Fisher and Paykel), per the Affidavit #1 of John Gil, Apr. 16, 2026, paras. 42, 67, 72, 74, 77–79.

A guarantee on the stock

The syndicate came to court asking for a liquidation. In February 2026 PwC, for the syndicate, had asked Hilco, Gordon Brothers and Tiger Capital Group for proposals, and only Hilco would guarantee a minimum. The agency agreement, as summarized in the First Report, set the guaranteed amount at 48.0% of the aggregate cost value of the merchandise, 80% of it payable within a business day of approval, per the First Report of the Monitor, Apr. 24, 2026, paras. 9.4–9.8, 10.4, 10.11. Justice Loo approved it on April 27, per the Liquidation Sale Approval Order, Apr. 27, 2026, para. 2.

The amended and restated initial order signed the same day approved a key employee retention plan capped at $550,700 and ranked the charges: the $500,000 administration charge first, the interim lender second, the KERP third. The syndicate's draft extended the stay to July 31; the order as signed strikes that date and writes in August 14, per the Amended and Restated Initial Order, Apr. 27, 2026, paras. 17, 54–57. The $2 million interim facility, priced at 10.2%, the default rate under the revolver, was never drawn, per the Pre-Filing Report of the Proposed Monitor, Apr. 17, 2026, para. 7.6.1 and the Second Report of the Monitor, Aug. 4, 2026, para. 1.3.

Sales fell away as soon as the filing was known, from an average of $472,000 a day over April 1 to 17 to $46,000 a day over April 18 to 23. Moneris wrote on April 20 that it would hold back 40% of card transactions until it had built a $7.4 million reserve, and by April 23 had withheld $250,094.55, per the First Report of the Monitor, Apr. 24, 2026, paras. 4.2, 6.3–6.5. The monitor refused the reserve, and the two later settled on periodic remittance of post-filing fees and case-by-case review of post-filing chargebacks, per the Second Report of the Monitor, Aug. 4, 2026, paras. 7.2–7.3.

Hilco's sale ran from April 18 to June 28, and no inventory was abandoned at the end; more than $40 million of it, at cost, was sold through. The Kelowna showroom went as a unit to Midland Appliance Ltd., stock, fixtures and lease, closing June 12. Hilco and the monitor could not agree a budget for the fixtures and equipment, so Hilco gave up that mandate on May 26, and GD Auctions and Able Auctions sold the racking, forklifts and warehouse equipment between about June 29 and July 9. A real estate broker found no realizable value in the leases, and the monitor disclaimed every one under s. 32 of the CCAA. The monitor signed about 104 retention agreements with key employees; by August, seven employees and four contractors remained. Commercial receivables and holdbacks of $25.3 million had yielded $16.8 million, with $8.5 million still to collect, per the Second Report of the Monitor, Aug. 4, 2026, paras. 3.1.15, 4.2, 4.5, 5.2–5.5, 8.2–8.5, 10.3, 13.14–13.19, App. B, note 8.