Texas company Westmont to buy Evergrande’s bankrupt Canadian hotel

[OTTAWA] Westmont Hospitality Group agreed to buy China Evergrande Group’s iconic log-cabin hotel in Canada out of bankruptcy proceedings, after the Chinese real-estate company failed to make payments on its debt.

Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello, which has hosted luminaries including American actress Grace Kelly and former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, was put up for sale in 2026 by PwC, the court-appointed receiver.

The acquisition was approved by the Quebec Superior Court in a decision released on Thursday (Sep 10), and the transaction is expected to close on Nov 15. No financial details were disclosed.

A total of 30 bids were initially made and deemed admissible.

A group that included Michael Andlauer, the owner of professional hockey team Ottawa Senators, made an offer for the resort and had pledged to invest as much as C$150 million (US$108 million).

Another group had attempted to block the sale of the resort, arguing that it was sidelined despite making a higher offer, because of its intention to remove Accor’s Fairmont Hotels and Resorts as manager of the hotel.

Evergrande’s collapse was by far the biggest in a real-estate crisis that dragged down China’s economic growth for years, and led to a record spate of distress among builders. The company, which first defaulted in 2021, was once the country’s largest developer by sales.

Its insolvent subsidiary, Millennium Golden Jiachen Hotel, owed C$58 million to creditors, including C$11 million to an affiliate of Desjardins Group, a Canadian financial company that was represented by law firm Gowling WLG in the legal proceedings.

Westmont Hospitality was founded in the 1970s and is based in Houston, going by the company’s website and LinkedIn profile.

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It has more than 500 hotels under the brands of major chains such as Fairmont, Hilton Worldwide, Marriott International and InterContinental Hotels Group.

Billing itself as the world’s largest log cabin, the 96-year-old Chateau Montebello opened as a private club near the beginning of the Great Depression.

The hotel, with more than 200 rooms and suites, is located around 130 km west of Montreal and includes an 18-hole golf course, a spa and a conference centre.

Evergrande bought it in 2014 from Oxford Properties Group, a unit of the Omers pension plan. BLOOMBERG