Court docket paperwork present the corporate that runs the Only for Laughs comedy pageant owes almost $22.5 million to collectors.
Groupe Juste pour rire Inc. introduced Tuesday that it was looking for creditor safety and cancelling this yr’s pageant in Montreal, and stated Wednesday that the Toronto occasion could be getting the axe too — at the very least briefly.
The papers filed in Quebec’s Superior Court docket present Juste pour rire owes $16.6 million to the Nationwide Financial institution of Canada.
It additionally owes almost $2 million to the Enterprise Growth Financial institution of Canada and greater than $2.5 million to the Societe de developpement des entreprises culturelles, a Quebec authorities company.
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A spokesman for the corporate declined to touch upon the monetary state of affairs.
Juste pour rire introduced Tuesday that it had laid off 75 workers — roughly 70 per cent of its workforce — because it seems to restructure.
The corporate says it hopes the festivals will resume in 2025 as soon as it has completed restructuring the enterprise.
The occasion in Montreal usually occurs in July, and the Toronto pageant had been scheduled for September.
Juste pour rire blamed its monetary woes on various elements, together with the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation and the altering leisure business, although courtroom data present a bailiff seized greater than $800,000 in belongings from the corporate final week after it did not make a court-ordered fee to a former worker.
That worker isn’t on the checklist of debtors filed in courtroom.
That checklist does embrace Equipe Spectra, a Montreal pageant producer that’s owed greater than $611,000; and Bell Canada, which is owed greater than $237,000. Bell Canada owns a 51 per cent stake in Juste pour rire with occasion promoter Evenko.
Evenko and Equipe Spektra are each a part of Groupe CH — an organization headed by Geoff Molson, who sits on the board of Juste pour rire.
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