B.C. billionaire interested in buying Hudson’s Bay stores

A billionaire who owns a number of malls in B.C. said she's interested in buying dozens of Hudson's Bay stores.

B.C. billionaire Weihong Liu recently took to Chinese social media platform RedNote saying she wants to “make the Bay great again.”

She has expressed interest in purchasing dozens of department stores that have gone into creditor protection.

Liu is the chair of Central Walk, a retail investment company which owns Woodgrove Mall in Nanaimo, Mayfair Mall in Victoria and Tsawwassen Mills in Metro Vancouver.

In the post to RedNote, she said she doesn’t want to see hundreds of years of retail history in Canada collapse. And seeing people upset about the Bay closing inspired her to fight to keep the brand alive.

“It just has too much heritage and it’s tied too much to our history. So, I applaud her efforts if she can find a way to salvage even part of the chain and keep the brand existing,” retail analyst Bruce Winder told CTV News.

Winder added that whoever purchases the Bay has an uphill battle to make it great again. But he believes there is a chance if someone can get it for the right price and restructure the Bay’s retail philosophy by scrapping the department store model – using successful brand Roots and Canada Goose as examples of a possible way forward.

“(If you) look at how they’ve went to retail, their go-to-market strategy – much smaller footprint, much more focused assortment – the Bay may do well in that regard,” Winder said.

April 30 is the deadline for anyone with internal or external interest in Hudson Bay assets to make a binding bid.