Friday, November 14, 1997
Court sends Bresea into receivership
By CLAUDIA CATTANEO
Calgary Bureau Chief The Financial Post
The Alberta Court of Appeal sent Bresea Resources Ltd. into receivership
yesterday, killing boss David Walsh's latest plan to turn it into an oil and gas
company.
But the court reserved judgment until a later date about whether Bresea should be assigned into
outright bankruptcy.
Bresea's sister company, Bre-X Minerals Ltd., went into voluntary bankruptcy last week. Trustee
Deloitte & Touche has started collecting information about as many as 50,000 creditors around the
world who lost billions after the company's gold deposits in Indonesia were found last spring to be a
scam.
Last week, Alberta Court of Queen's Bench Judge Robert Cairns left Bresea's future in limbo. While
he ordered Bresea into the hands of receiver Price Waterhouse, with a mandate to put it into
bankruptcy under trustee Arthur Andersen, he stayed his own order pending the outcome of the
appeal.
The receivership, while still short of what investors wanted, "means that investors can sleep better
because they now know that all of the assets ... are under supervision, they are under protection," said
Clint Docken, a Calgary lawyer representing Alberta investors.
J. B. Rooney, a lawyer representing Walsh, had asked the court to keep Bresea alive because the
company was not insolvent.
With $26 million in cash, Bresea owns a building in Calgary valued at $2.3 million, assets in Indonesia
worth another $2 million to $5 million, and has almost no debt.
Bre-X's assets stand at US$5 million. The company was worth $6 billion in market capitalization at
its peak. |
