2023-05-25 04:05:00
Almost two years following having definitively closed its doors, at the height of the pandemic, the Grévin museum in Montreal has just officially declared bankruptcy, learned The newspaper.
Exclusively owned by La Compagnie des Alpes, in France, Musée Grévin Montréal is closing the books on its Canadian adventure with debts of $12.1 million, according to documents filed with the Superintendent of Bankruptcy.
As of May 10, the operator of the museum located in downtown Montreal was facing debts of $12.4 million. In return, Grévin Montreal only had assets of $241,835 in cash, held in an account with the National Bank of Canada.
According to Marino Delacas, the trustee in the file, the only creditor in this case is Compagnie des Alpes (CDA), which wishes to be able to claim its loss from the tax authorities. This important company, founded in 1989 by the Caisse des dépôts et consignations in France, is now listed on the Paris Stock Exchange.
In the absence of other creditors, it is therefore essentially to the parent company [Compagnie des Alpes] that will be responsible for covering all the losses of $12.1M for the Montreal museum. As of September 30, Caisse des dépôts remained the main shareholder of Compagnie des Alpes, with 42.16% of the shares.
A mixed success
The Grévin Museum in Montreal opened its doors in April 2013, with just over 120 wax statues, including those of many local stars. Among them were, among others, those of Dominique Michel, Jean Béliveau, Julie Snyder, Céline Dion and Justin Trudeau.
Despite its strong notoriety, the museum, which had strangely settled on the fifth and last floor of the Eaton Center, a shopping center belonging to Ivanhoé Cambridge, has never really succeeded in finding its audience in Quebec.
The Covid-19 pandemic and the health measures then imposed by the Quebec government will have finally got the better of its existence. After 50 weeks of forced closure, management announces that it is packing up on September 16, 2021.
And the statues?
What has happened to the wax statues since the museum closed? Some artists, like Ricardo, wanted to recover their effigy, but most of them were sent to museums.
According to the latest news, 39 statues of Quebecers known abroad and others of international stars were to be acquired by the Grévin museum in Paris. Others have been entrusted to various museum institutions and cultural centres. For example, the Musée de la civilization, in Quebec, would have recovered ten characters, including René Lévesque, Robert Charlebois, Mado Lamothe, Ginette Reno and Chantal Petitclerc.
Other characters, on the other hand, experienced a more modest fate. For example, the statue of skater Joannie Rochette is now on display at the Berthierville arena and that of Maurice Richard was recently entrusted to the Ahuntsic arena.
– With the collaboration of Nicolas Brasseur, from the Bureau of Investigation.
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