Regent Aircraft: a sale to Sunshine, and a fuselage BDO reads as security

In January 2025 Steven Gratto, the sole director of Regent Aircraft Services Inc., gave Gravitas Aviation Ltd. a document titled "MSN 106 Fuselage Quote" that priced a de Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter fuselage, serial number 106, at US$750,000. On June 25, 2025 he signed, for Regent, a warranty bill of sale that sells the same fuselage to Gravitas, reciting "good and valuable consideration of ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND CANADIAN DOLLARS (CDN$100,000.00)." BDO Canada Limited, now Regent's receiver and trustee in bankruptcy, understands, and has told Gravitas, that the bill of sale "was intended to be held solely as security for the proposed CDN$100,000 advance, rather than as evidence of an outright transfer of ownership of MSN 106," per the Receiver's First Report, Oct. 7, 2026, paras. 8, 17, 32(b), 39–40 and Apps. "C", "F", "M".

BDO filed that report on October 7, with an application for approval of a sale of most of Regent's assets to Sunshine Airspares, Inc., at a price it asks the court to seal. The application is returnable at 2:30 p.m. on October 14, 2026, before Justice M.A. Marion, per the Receiver's Application, Oct. 7, 2026, p. 1 and paras. 1, 14.

A Calgary repair shop and its bank

Regent was incorporated in Alberta on May 6, 1977, and the receiver understands Mr. Gratto, who holds its voting shares through two numbered companies, to be "a second-generation owner of the Company," per the Receiver's First Report, Oct. 7, 2026, paras. 17–19. Holding a Transport Canada maintenance licence, it repaired fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters and made components from a hangar at Calgary International Airport and two leased sites nearby. Payroll records showed 48 employees in early September 2025. After two rounds of layoffs in October about 25 remained, and on or around November 3 Mr. Gratto told them that operations were suspended until further notice. The interim receiver understood the company had "encountered several financial and operational challenges, including difficulties collecting several large receivables," and that several landlords terminated their leases in November, per the First IR Report, Dec. 4, 2025, paras. 12–14, 18–19, 21–22.

ATB Financial had extended a $3,000,000 revolving operating facility in October 2024, secured over all of Regent's personal property. Bhaskar Kakkar of ATB swore on November 12, 2025 that Regent failed to make required interest payments around the summer of 2025, that ATB demanded payment on September 23, and that Regent owed approximately $2,882,926.18 plus interest and costs. ATB, he swore, feared dissipation of collateral, much of which it understood to be parts, inventory and serial-numbered aircraft goods "which are by their nature highly mobile," per the Kakkar Affidavit, Nov. 12, 2025, paras. 4–7, 9, 15.

On November 14, 2025, with Regent's consent, Justice Bourque of the Court of King's Bench of Alberta, court file 2501-18254, appointed BDO interim receiver under s. 47(1) of the BIA, per the Interim Receivership Order, Nov. 14, 2025, para. 2 and p. 10. On February 27, 2026 Justice C.D. Simard appointed it receiver under s. 243(1), with power to assign Regent into bankruptcy on notice, per the Receivership Order, Feb. 27, 2026, paras. 2, 3(s). It did so on June 11, 2026, per the Receiver's First Report, Oct. 7, 2026, para. 32(b).

Ahead of ATB, the first-ranking secured creditor, rank an interim receiver's charge of up to $200,000, a receiver's charge of up to $200,000, and borrowings charges of $300,000 and $200,000, both fully drawn. Service Canada has a WEPPA super-priority claim of $55,986. CRA asserts a super-priority claim of $364,405 for source deductions within a total claim of $507,898, per the Receiver's First Report, Oct. 7, 2026, paras. 27–30, 68 and the Receivership Order, Feb. 27, 2026, paras. 18, 21, 26.

What the books said, and what the receiver found

Regent's books were incomplete; the interim receiver understood its bookkeeper had resigned in about July 2025 and was not replaced, per the First IR Report, Dec. 4, 2025, para. 15. The February 2025 financial statement reported approximately $514,132 in cash; the interim receiver recovered $89,926 from the bank accounts. Of $2,363,232 in receivables reported by management as at November 2025, including a balance owed by Gravitas, the receiver collected approximately $30,000. Its reasons include set-off of Regent debt, invoices already paid, missing documentation and "claims of assets belonging to customers being sold or disposed of by Regent without the customer's authorization or consent." As for a Harley Davidson and boats on the books, "Mr. Gratto has rejected the Receiver's assertion that the Harley and Boats belong to the Company and has not disclosed the location of such assets," the receiver reports, per the Receiver's First Report, Oct. 7, 2026, paras. 21–23, 26.

In December 2025 the interim receiver applied to have Mr. Gratto found in civil contempt, reporting that he had "not provided any material information in response to the Interim Receiver's request for books and records," per the Second IR Report, Dec. 29, 2025, paras. 5, 17, 19. On January 8, 2026 Justice Simard granted a compliance order, which the interim receiver proposed and Mr. Gratto did not object to, directing him to produce what had been requested, disclose where the boats were and meet the interim receiver in Calgary, and adjourning the contempt application; he came to Calgary on January 22, per the Compliance Order, Jan. 8, 2026, paras. 1–2, 4–5 and the Third IR Report, Jan. 23, 2026, paras. 6, 24. Four days later the interim receiver reported that, while a number of deliverables remained outstanding, he had "commenced making an effort to comply," that some information "may be outside of Mr. Gratto's possession or ability to provide," and that it would accept an adjournment of the contempt application sine die, per the Supplement to the Third IR Report, Jan. 26, 2026, paras. 20, 22.

Two bills of sale

Gravitas supports its claim to the fuselage with the bill of sale and evidence of an international registration under the Cape Town Convention. The receiver's reading rests on an August 8, 2025 email to Mr. Gratto from Gravitas's president, which Mr. Gratto gave the receiver: "The $100,000 CDN we sent June 25th was a one week advance unrelated to our invoices … I have the Bill of Sale on 106 to hold as security for that money," per the Receiver's First Report, Oct. 7, 2026, paras. 36–38 and App. "F".

If its position is not accepted and the transaction is found to have transferred ownership, the receiver says, the trustee "may have grounds to seek a determination from the Court that the transaction constituted a transfer at undervalue pursuant to section 96 of the BIA," and in considering such a claim it would have regard to the US$750,000 in the quote, "while also recognizing the results of the Sales Process and the Hopkinson appraisal." On those results, it does not consider the quote "representative of the current market value of MSN 106." It has continued to engage with Gravitas and SEFT Holdings Ltd., "a party related to Gravitas," over the fuselage and over receivables Regent claims that Gravitas disputes or meets with counterclaims, per the Receiver's First Report, Oct. 7, 2026, paras. 32(h), 39, 41–42. The report's body does not give Gravitas's reply to that reading.

The second bill of sale covers a pair of aircraft wings. Barry Hades swore in January 2026 that BLKBOX Innovations Inc. sold Regent a 50% interest in them in June 2024; that Regent sold him 100% on November 29, 2024, a purchase he says he made "as a way to provide a short-term influx of cash to the company"; and that BLKBOX, to which Regent later moved the wings, sold them to a third party for US$650,000 in December 2025. BLKBOX's position, as he describes it, is that it kept a 50% interest and asserts a right to set off the other half against Regent's debts to it, per the Hades Affidavit, Jan. 22, 2026, paras. 3, 5–8, 22, 26, 29. Funds from that sale are held in trust by Mr. Hades's counsel, and he has asked that they be released to him, per the Receiver's First Report, Oct. 7, 2026, para. 43.