Monette Farms: one offer for the farm at Aguila

Monette Farms has been trying to sell its farm at Aguila, in Maricopa County, Arizona, since September 26, 2025, when it signed a listing agreement with Southwest Land Associates, LLC, a broker the group describes as familiar with agricultural properties in the state. The broker offered the farm privately to industry contacts and then, from January 26, 2026, publicly, at US$22 million, alongside a cold produce storage building and a seed facility on West Camelback Road listed together at US$10 million. No offer came for any of it. Relisted after the CCAA filing at US$18.5 million, a cut the lenders' agent approved, the farm drew one offer, from Byner Cattle Company, which had expressed interest throughout the pre-filing marketing without ever submitting a bid, per the Fourth Affidavit of Darrel Monette, Aug. 10, 2026, paras. 17–20.

On August 19, Justice C.J. Feasby of the Court of King's Bench of Alberta approved the sale and granted a vesting order, per the Arizona Sale Approval and Vesting Order, Aug. 19, 2026, paras. 3, 6. The price is not on the public record. In the executed agreement appended to the monitor's report, which names Byner as a Nevada corporation, the purchase price and the 5% earnest money are both blanks, per the Third Report of the Monitor, Aug. 12, 2026, App. "B", preamble and s. 3.1. The unredacted copy is in a confidential affidavit the applicants asked to have sealed, and the orders Cassels Brock & Blackwell served the next day included a sealing order granted by Justice Feasby, per the Service Letter re 19 August, 2026 Service of Order, Aug. 20, 2026, p. 1. Title will not pass until the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, where the group's chapter 15 case is pending, recognizes the order.

Swift Current, 1912

The group's history begins with a family grain farm at Swift Current, Saskatchewan, in 1912. Darrel Monette, its sole voting shareholder and chief executive, took the farm over in 2013, and the expansion that followed was "funded by debt secured against the acquired farmland." The group went into the United States in 2019 and into cattle and produce in 2021, segments his first affidavit calls higher-profit but costlier to start and to staff than grain, per the Affidavit of Darrel Monette, Apr. 17, 2026, paras. 1, 21–22, 26. By April 12, 2026 it owned about 274,000 acres, leased about 218,000 more under 196 leases, and described itself as a top-ten global farm operator by acres farmed. Grain was more than 50% of 2025 revenue; produce, about 15%, came from Saskatchewan and British Columbia "with significant fall and winter production in Arizona." In the affidavit's table of owned land, the Aguila farm is a 3,134-acre line entered under produce, per the Affidavit of Darrel Monette, Apr. 17, 2026, paras. 11, 80, 89, 91.

The affidavit attributes the insolvency to leverage and shrinking margins. Between 2017 and 2022 revenue rose from $45 million to $198 million and EBITDA from $20 million to $83 million. In 2024 revenue reached $347 million on 440,000 cultivated acres while EBITDA fell to $37 million, or $83 an acre; for 2025 the group projected $72 million and made about $31 million, citing "poor crop prices, higher costs, spoilage, and poor yields." Borrowing against land had been "sustainable with lower interest rates in the range of three percent and growing Real Property valuations," and from 2024, the affidavit says, land values went flat while rates and inflation stayed high, per the Affidavit of Darrel Monette, Apr. 17, 2026, paras. 107–109, 147.

The senior lenders are a syndicate with The Bank of Nova Scotia as agent, under a Senior Facilities Agreement dated December 5, 2018 that the monitor describes as a $930 million facility, $950 million with its accordion, per the Third Report of the Monitor, Aug. 12, 2026, para. 19. About $829.5 million was outstanding under it when it matured on April 15, 2026. Farm Credit Canada's $30 million revolving facility, secured on cattle bought with its advances, matured the same day with $11,809,862.49 owing, and FCC issued demands on April 16, per the Affidavit of Darrel Monette, Apr. 17, 2026, paras. 112, 125–130.

An RBC Capital Markets process in the second half of 2024 to raise about $400 million for a minority stake did not complete. The group sold farmland at Regina for $41.18 million and 17,000 acres in Montana for $47.5 million, signed a forbearance agreement in November 2025 and soon missed its milestones. A sale programme then sold the 12,932-acre Stewart Valley Farm for $54 million, drew 62 bids on parts of 135,600 acres with results "not acceptable to the Group," and took the British Columbia ranches to an auction where they did not sell. On April 6, 2026 the group told the syndicate the cattle herds would not be sold as a draft restructuring support agreement contemplated. The syndicate then advised that, without an acceptable business plan and forecast, any liquidity past maturity would require a CCAA-supervised structure, per the Affidavit of Darrel Monette, Apr. 17, 2026, paras. 14, 148–161. The growing season was weeks off. "In my view, this binary outcome—either seed now or lose the year—is the central operational reality," Mr. Monette deposed, per the Affidavit of Darrel Monette, Apr. 17, 2026, para. 56.

Justice C.M. Jones granted the initial order on April 21, per the Second Affidavit of Darrel Noel Monette, Apr. 28, 2026, para. 7. On May 1 the amended and restated order extended the stay to June 19, approved interim financing of up to $90 million from the syndicate secured by a $95 million charge; on May 13 the Delaware court recognized the CCAA proceeding as a foreign main proceeding, per the Third Report of the Monitor, Aug. 12, 2026, paras. 1–4.

Hafford, at a price anyone can read

The first sale to close was agreed before the filing. G and K Walter Farms and Harvesting Ltd., of Magrath, Alberta, signed a Saskatchewan realtors' association form contract on March 9, 2026 to buy 2,553 acres at Hafford for "Twenty-nine million ($29,000,000)." It was one of two offers for that land; the other was conditional, "fell materially below the appraised value" and did not extend to the leased land farmed with it, per the Second Affidavit of Darrel Noel Monette, Apr. 28, 2026, paras. 36, 38 and Ex. "A". Justice M.H. Bourque approved the sale on May 1, per the Hafford Sale Approval and Vesting Order, May 1, 2026, para. 2. It closed on May 13, and the $28.9 million in proceeds went to the syndicate once title was updated at the Saskatchewan land titles registry on May 25, per the Second Report of the Monitor, June 4, 2026, para. 25. Cattle sales paid out the other secured lender: by May 22 they had repaid the FCC facility in full, with FCC's legal fees, per the Third Affidavit of Darrel Monette, June 1, 2026, para. 20.

Two tracks and a hold date

The sale process for everything else was approved on June 12 by Justice R.W. Armstrong, per the recitals to the Arizona Sale Approval and Vesting Order, Aug. 19, 2026, p. 2, and the stay was extended the same day to November 13, per the Third Report of the Monitor, Aug. 12, 2026, para. 5. The monitor runs one track, for an en bloc sale, investment or refinancing; brokers in each jurisdiction run the other, for individual farms, seed processing facilities and cattle ranches. The syndicate's agent must consent to list prices, to which bids qualify and which win, and to any change in timelines. A Canadian land sale at $30 million or less may use an expedited approval process, which does not extend to assets in the United States. The monitor noted that the applicants own about 275,000 acres, concentrated in Saskatchewan, and that "this amount of farmland hitting the market all at once will be unprecedented and accordingly it is yet to be determined how the market will absorb the supply," per the Second Report of the Monitor, June 4, 2026, paras. 54–56, 65–68.