Quality Meats creditors meeting scheduled for later this month

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

by JIM ALGIE

The first meeting of creditors of the officially-bankrupt Quality Meat Packing Limited is to be held May 26 beginning at 10 a.m. at the Sheraton Centre Hotel in downtown Toronto, a bankruptcy trustee’s notice posted late Tuesday says.

Following a hearing earlier on Tuesday, Ontario Superior Court Justice D. M. Brown appointed A. Farber and Partners Inc. trustees to supervise liquidation of Quality Meats’ assets. The judge deemed the company bankrupt, effective May 6. A copy of the order is posted on the receiver’s website at Farberfinancial.com.

The bankruptcy declaration followed a month of turmoil after the 83-year-old company effectively ceased operations and sought court protection, April 3. In recent years, Quality Meat Packing Ltd. and a related company, Toronto Abattoirs, have processed as much as a quarter of the hogs marketed weekly in Ontario.

The company ceased operations owing millions of dollars to Ontario hog farmers for livestock delivered in the final week of normal course operations. A statement on the receiver’s website says company employees have been paid wages and vacation pay up to and including May 5.

The two companies employed more than 500 people processing and marketing Legacy-brand pork products in Canada and internationally.

Judge Brown’s May 6 order appoints Farber to secure assets of the bankrupt companies. It empowers the receiver “to market any and all of the property.”

As well, the trustee is to assist the company in preparing a “statement of affairs” required by terms of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act within five days, Farber says in its website statement. The receiver is to contact creditors and employees by mail with a formal notice about the process by May 16.

Preliminary lists of creditors and their debts published on the Farber website shows more than 200 creditors and debts outstanding of more than $40 million. They include more than 80 livestock truckers and Ontario hog farmers. One estimate shows outstanding debt to hog farmers of about $8.6 million.

Two major creditors are the Toronto Dominion Bank and a holding company involving Quality Meats president David Schwartz. Schwartz’s holding company, Quality Meat Packers Holdings Ltd., is not identified in bankruptcy proceedings except as a creditor claiming security on debts of more than $19 million.

Farber’s statement advises creditors that amounts listed to date in the case are “estimates only based on the company’s books and records.”

“Creditors will have the opportunity to file a proof of claim for the actual amounts,” the receiver’s statement says. BF