Minglian: the Duet closes, and MNP asks to be discharged

Thirty-eight homes, three shops and an office floor were planned for the ten-storey building at 2511 Spruce Street in Vancouver, and by the time National Bank of Canada asked the court to put Minglian Holdings Ltd. and its nominee company under the CCAA in September 2025, Minglian had pre-sold 22 of the homes and two of the shops, on contracts with an outside completion date of December 31, 2027, per the Affidavit #1 of Richard Dean Chan, Sept. 24, 2025, paras. 3, 5, 23. On the records provided to it, MNP Ltd., the monitor, understands that those buyers paid $3,464,325 in deposits to Stikeman Elliott LLP, the debtors' solicitors on the project, in trust: $938,000 on the commercial units and $2,526,325 on the residential ones. It also understands that $1,456,023 was released before the proceedings began, in some cases the whole of a buyer's deposit, leaving $2,008,302 in trust, $938,000 of it for commercial units and $1,070,302 for residential. That money has since moved from Stikeman's trust account to that of the monitor's counsel, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, per the Ninth Report of the Monitor, Oct. 6, 2026, paras. 14–15.

On September 19, according to MNP's Ninth Report, the sale of the Duet Project to 1599790 B.C. Ltd., the assignee of Signature Capital Inc.'s purchase agreement, closed. "Following completion of the Transaction, the Debtors no longer have an interest in the Duet Project and will not complete the transactions contemplated by the Presale Agreements," the monitor writes. It intends to disclaim the presale agreements and return the deposits, "to the extent held," to the buyers, and to do so before its application for a discharge is heard if it can, per the Ninth Report of the Monitor, Oct. 6, 2026, paras. 4, 6, 13, 18.

The deposits are subject to a deposit protection insurance policy which, the monitor reports, permitted Minglian to use a portion of the presale deposits it received for financing purposes. Amounts released to Minglian under that policy form no part of the deposits to be returned, and neither Fasken nor the monitor holds them in trust. Buyers whose deposits the monitor and Fasken do not hold "may have recourse under the DPI Policy for the return of those deposit amounts," and in connection with the disclaimer the monitor intends to tell them of their potential rights under it, per the Ninth Report of the Monitor, Oct. 6, 2026, paras. 16–17.

The marketing of the building and the sealed-bid round that produced this sale were reported here on August 25.

The closing, and the bank's distribution

MNP filed its certificate that it had received the full purchase price on September 21, per the Monitor's Certificate, filed Sept. 21, 2026, para. 1. Justice Stephens's approval and vesting order of July 21 attached a sequence of steps to that certificate's delivery, among them the issue of one new common share in 0882892 B.C. Ltd., the nominee that held bare title to the land, to the purchaser; the cancellation of the nominee's other securities; and the nominee's release "from the purview of all orders of this Court granted in these proceedings, save and except for this Order," per the Order Made After Application (Approval and Vesting Order), July 21, 2026, para. 8(d)–(f). The Ninth Report records that the certificate released the nominee from the orders made in the proceedings, per the Ninth Report of the Monitor, Oct. 6, 2026, para. 6.

The report does not state the price. It says MNP received net proceeds "of approximately $21.54 million from closing the Transaction," after paying, under the vesting order and the agreement, the outstanding property taxes for 2025 and 2026, with interest and penalties, which had to be paid to transfer title; utility charges owing to the City of Vancouver; and Cushman & Wakefield's commission, inclusive of taxes, per the Ninth Report of the Monitor, Oct. 6, 2026, para. 25. In August the monitor had built its cash-flow forecast on Signature's original offer of $18.3 million, noting that the approved agreement, which "includes a higher purchase price," could not be disclosed because it was subject to the sealing order, per the Eighth Report of the Monitor, Aug. 21, 2026, para. 20. The proceeds, the Ninth Report now says, "were higher under the amended Signature PSA approved by this Court following the Sealed Bid Process," per the Ninth Report of the Monitor, Oct. 6, 2026, para. 44(a).

The vesting order authorized the monitor to distribute the net proceeds of the sale, per the Order Made After Application (Approval and Vesting Order), July 21, 2026, para. 20, and on October 6 MNP made an interim distribution to NBC of approximately $20.04 million. Of that, $1.63 million went to the bank as interim lender for the amounts owing under the interim financing facility, including the $1.63 million of principal, with accrued interest and costs; the balance, approximately $18.41 million, went "on account of the secured indebtedness owed to it by the Debtors." The monitor kept back $1,500,000 "to fund the completion of the administration of these proceedings and to provide a contingency for any issues that may arise," per the Ninth Report of the Monitor, Oct. 6, 2026, paras. 26–27.