A British Columbia-based billionaire mall owner is planning to “acquire” beleaguered retailer Hudson’s Bay, according to a series of posts on a Chinese social media platform.
In seven videos posted over the last two weeks on RedNote, a Chinese social networking and e-commerce app, Weihong Liu, chairwoman of shopping centre owner Central Walk, expressed her intent to buy Hudson’s Bay, which filed for creditor protection on March 7.
“We will buy dozens of the stores together. It’s a once-in-300-years opportunity,” says Liu in one video posted on March 26 in which she was filmed providing a tour of Tsawwassen Mills Mall, just south of Vancouver.
The shopping centre is one of three owned and operated by the Nanaimo, B.C.-based Central Walk, which also counts Mayfair Shopping Centre in Victoria and Woodgrove Centre in Nanaimo, in its portfolio of properties. The company also owns Arbutus Ridge Golf Club on Vancouver Island.
Liu could be one of many parties looking to purchase or invest in Hudson’s Bay’s assets and intellectual properties through a bidding process. The deadline for declaring intent is April 7, with bids due by April 30.
In another video posted on April 3, Liu explains why she wants to buy Hudson’s Bay, saying, “I saw The Bay closing down, and I saw how sad Canadians were. It moved me deeply … That ignited my fighting spirit.”
“Revive the retail industry, solve employment issues, create miracles, and make The Bay great again,” she continues in the video.
When contacted by the Star Friday, Liu declined to comment, saying only that she is planning a press conference in Vancouver on April 18.
Liu is set to submit “a letter of intent for the acquisition of Hudson’s Bay” shortly, according to the caption of a video posted on April 1, in which she was filmed playing golf with her employees.
According to previous reporting by Chinese media, Liu grew up in Harbin, the capital of China’s northernmost province called Heilongjiang, and began working as an apprentice in a shoe factory at age 16. Since 1982, she has been involved in various entrepreneurial projects, from clothing wholesale to running restaurants, which grew in size over the years.
Liu founded Yijing Investment Development Co., Ltd. in 1994 and established a subsidiary, Yijing Central Walk, in 2002, in which she invested $126 million to build the Central Walk Shopping Mall in Shenzhen, one of the most developed cities on China’s southern border, next to Hong Kong.
The five-storey, 900,000-square-foot Central Walk Shopping Mall was sold to Hong Kong-based Link Real Estate Investment Trust for over $1 billion in 2019. A year later, Central Walk moved its headquarters to Canada when it acquired Woodgrove Centre in Nanaimo and two other malls over the next two years.
In one of the Rednote videos, Liu addresses online rumours that she was a “white glove” — a person or organization that appears legitimate that conducts potentially illegal activity on behalf of a foreign government — for the Chinese Communist Party.
“I am not a ‘white glove.’ My money was earned through my hard work,” said Liu.
In a more-than two-hour, four-part YouTube interview with Liu conducted by Chinese media company 56 Below TV in 2023, the businesswoman provides viewers with an inside look of her home and business life on the West Coast. The videos include a tour of her massive mansion in the UBC Endowment Lands featuring an indoor swimming pool, home theatre and an ornate wooden chair she says is a replica of the queen of England’s throne.
In the interview, she acknowledges that she was a former member of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body to the Chinese government. She said she gradually grew tired of the controlled voting process in the CPPCC and the policies targeting businesses, and left the Conference before she immigrated to Canada.
“If I stayed any longer, I might have been arrested because I couldn’t stand them,” Liu said.
Two weeks ago, the Ontario Superior Court granted the once-powerful Hudson’s Bay permission to liquidate most of its business, including 74 Bay stores, three Saks Fifth Avenue stores and 13 Saks Off 5th stores, in an effort to pay off more than $1 billion in debt. Since then, consumers have been flocking to stores and thebay.com to take advantage of deals on goods and apparel, including those featuring the company’s trademark stripes.
The six locations the company wants to continue running, at least temporarily, are its flagship store at Yonge and Queen streets in Toronto, the store at Yorkdale mall, one at Hillcrest Mall in Richmond Hill, as well as three Quebec locations in Montreal, the Carrefour Laval Mall and Pointe-Claire.
The company is now seeking bids from interested parties for its leases, a process experts have said will be challenging given the enormous physical footprints of its retail locations. The downtown locations in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, for example, each span more than 600,000 square feet, which is about the size of 10 football fields.
Liu also discusses her views on North American shopping malls in the YouTube interview, which she calls a “sunset industry.”
“A good shopping mall is not just about shopping, but culture, display, experiences, entertainment and eatery,” said Liu. “Because we Chinese people are hardworking and smart, we can transform and revitalize a sunset industry.”
