Dr. Claude Morissette founded a dental clinic in Trois-Rivières in 2009. From 2012 he and Dr. Quynh-Anh Pham bought others: half of a clinic in Saint-Bruno that year and the other half in 2020, Brossard and Louiseville in 2019, Berthierville in 2020, Québec City and Saint-Laurent in 2021. In 2022 they consolidated the network under a holding company, Bukö Réso Centres Dentaires inc., which they own in equal shares, and a second clinic in Longueuil, bought in October 2023, made nine. Trois-Rivières had its founder, six other employees and about 700 active patients; Berthierville, with three dentists, two hygienists and five other staff, counted about 3,784, per the Application for Initial Order, Apr. 23, 2026, paras. 4, 18–23, 29–41.
By April 2026 the network was being taken apart clinic by clinic. The two Longueuil companies had assigned their property in bankruptcy on March 24, after a sale process drew no offer for either and, in the proposed monitor's words, they were generating "operating losses that the Business is no longer able to bear" [translation], per the Pre-Filing Report of the Proposed Monitor, Apr. 24, 2026, para. 21. Four more clinics were under agreements signed on April 22 with 123Dentiste Québec inc. and Dr Vigneault Ltée, and a fifth, in Saint-Laurent, was under an offer from Sourire Saint-Laurent inc., controlled by the dentist who has worked full-time at that clinic for several years. For the last two, in Berthierville and Louiseville, the application for an initial order said only that "the terms of their restructuring remain to be determined" [translation], per the Application for Initial Order, Apr. 23, 2026, paras. 12, 15, 107.
On April 29, 2026, Justice Patrick Ouellet of the Superior Court of Québec, Commercial Division, granted the eight companies an initial order under the CCAA, appointed MNP Ltd. as monitor and stayed proceedings to May 11, per the Initial Order, Apr. 29, 2026, paras. 8, 18, 38. On August 13 he signed the order that will end the proceeding. In between, all seven remaining clinics were sold or approved for sale, and the one claims process the court ordered was for the company that ran the Trois-Rivières clinic.
Staff shortages, raises and a clinic in Longueuil
In their application, the debtors trace the decline over three fiscal years in which profits fell and debt rose; EBITDA stayed positive in fiscal 2025, but the companies could not cover their debt service. Revenue that had grown steadily stopped growing between fiscal 2024 and 2025, and fell at Berthierville, Québec City and Brossard. Results below expectations "are explained by labour shortages, among dental hygienists as well as dentists, which limited billing to clients" [translation]. Hygienists received significant raises in 2025 to keep up with the market, so payroll rose 3% while revenue stalled and the two owner-dentists worked at reduced salaries, per the Application for Initial Order, Apr. 23, 2026, paras. 42–50.
The second cause the application names is the Longueuil 2 acquisition, which added about $1 million of long-term debt in fiscal 2024. That clinic missed the coverage ratio in its financing agreement for fiscal 2024, and its operating lender, the National Bank of Canada, issued a forbearance letter on April 9, 2025. "Since its acquisition, the clinic never succeeded in reaching net profitability. The main reason lies in the high cost of the financing tied to the purchase" [translation], per the Application for Initial Order, Apr. 23, 2026, paras. 51, 53–54.
A strategic study in fiscal 2024, the proposed monitor reported, showed that several clinics did not cover their debt service and had to be carried by those generating surplus cash, surpluses produced in part by substantial salary reductions for the two owner-dentists and by certain personal advances they made to the business. Management decided to keep supporting the group, but only in order to run a sale process meant to repay the bank loans, per the Pre-Filing Report of the Proposed Monitor, Apr. 24, 2026, paras. 15–17.
At February 28, 2026 the debtors' long-term debt stood at $6,612,000: $4,229,000 owed to Caisse Desjardins du Réseau de la Santé, which financed Berthierville, Québec City, Brossard and Saint-Laurent; $1,110,000 to the National Bank, lender to Trois-Rivières and formerly to Longueuil 2; $557,000 to BMO, for Louiseville; $267,000 to RBC, for Saint-Bruno; and $449,000 in capital leases, per the Application for Initial Order, Apr. 23, 2026, paras. 60, 62. The unaudited balance sheet at that date showed $12,061,000 of assets against $8,944,000 of liabilities, and $7,656,000 of those assets were intangibles, per the Application for Initial Order, Apr. 23, 2026, para. 59. "Without the value of these intangible assets, the net worth of Groupe Buko Réso would be negative for every fiscal year" [translation], per the Pre-Filing Report of the Proposed Monitor, Apr. 24, 2026, para. 32.
Five clinics under contract before the filing
MNP Financement d'entreprises, the group's sale adviser, went to market the week of April 21, 2025 and contacted 27 strategic buyers; nine signed confidentiality agreements and two made offers. The group signed a letter of intent with 123Dentiste on June 16, 2025 covering every clinic. After due diligence the buyer came back on September 17, 2025 with a revised offer for four, amended again in October and November, per the Pre-Filing Report of the Proposed Monitor, Apr. 24, 2026, paras. 49–51. A second process from November 2025 covered the other five clinics. It produced one offer, dated December 22, 2025, from a dentist practising at Saint-Laurent, accepted on April 22, 2026, and none for the two Longueuil clinics, Berthierville or Louiseville, per the Pre-Filing Report of the Proposed Monitor, Apr. 24, 2026, paras. 52–54.
123Dentiste, which the application describes as operating more than 450 clinics across Canada, took substantially all the assets of the Saint-Bruno, Québec City, Brossard and Trois-Rivières clinics, for a price payable in cash at closing, subject to a $200,000 adjustment holdback payable about 60 days later; the only condition was the approval and vesting order, per the Application for Initial Order, Apr. 23, 2026, paras. 95–96. The proposed monitor reported that the transaction kept the jobs of all the staff, employees, dentists and denturists then working at those clinics, "in addition to a service contract with the two owner-dentists" [translation], per the Pre-Filing Report of the Proposed Monitor, Apr. 24, 2026, para. 58(c).
For Saint-Bruno and Trois-Rivières, the professional assets (patient base and goodwill, patient files, trade names, dentists' contracts) went to Dr Vigneault Ltée and everything else, including equipment, leases and receivables, to 123Dentiste Québec inc.; at all four clinics the dentists' contracts went to the first and the premises leases to the second, with cure costs payable by the buyers within 15 days, per the Approval and Vesting Order, May 8, 2026, paras. 4, 15–16, Schs. A, D. The price is not public. The court ordered the purchase agreements and the letter of intent kept confidential and under seal, as the initial order had done for them and for the Saint-Laurent offer, per the Approval and Vesting Order, May 8, 2026, para. 38 and the Initial Order, Apr. 29, 2026, para. 58.
The court approved both sales on May 8. The 123Dentiste deal closed on May 11, when the monitor issued its certificate, and the buyer held back part of the price for post-closing adjustments, a balance the monitor put at $166,761.72 on July 30; the Saint-Laurent order was rectified on May 27 and that sale's certificate issued on June 8, per the Monitor's Second Report, July 30, 2026, paras. 2, 4, 14–15.
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