Hôtel Opus Montréal (ancien Godin) (2008)

[mtlurb]

 

[MartinMtl]

On dirait une photo de publicité. T'as l'oeil.

[ProposMontréal]

Hôtel Opus va annoncer sa "Mise en Séquestre" bientôt, en tant que créancier, je viens de recevoir la lettre de confirmation. C'est à deux pas de la Faillite ça.

http://www.pwc.com/ca/fr/car/opushotel/index.jhtml .

[Rocco]

Pas surprenant.. qui veut payer 400$ pour une chambre d'hôtel à côté d'un des coins les plus dégueu en ville. En plus l'édifice est laid à mort, on dirait une usine.

[jesseps]

Hôtel Opus va annoncer sa "Mise en Séquestre" bientôt, en tant que créancier, je viens de recevoir la lettre de confirmation. C'est à deux pas de la Faillite ça.

http://www.pwc.com/ca/fr/car/opushotel/index.jhtml .

 

Ouch. I never stayed there but I went to Koko once and the place downstairs a few times. Plus what is more interesting Conde Nast Traveler ranked Opus in it's Top 10 Canadian hotels this year.

Modifié 26 novembre 2011 par jesseps

[IluvMTL]

http://www.montrealgazette.com/story_print.html?id=5770891&sponsor=

 

 

Trendy Montreal hotel, which owes creditors about $50 million, filed for bankruptcy protection last month and has left a trail of questionable spending

 

BY ALLISON LAMPERT, THE GAZETTENOVEMBER 26, 2011

 

The luxurious Montreal Opus is in financial straits, a victim of the 2008 economic crisis, but with a series of receipts also revealing a legacy of questionable spending, The Gazette has learned.

 

The trendy boutique hotel - including KO-KO restaurant and Suco lounge - acquired in 2007 by Trilogy Properties (Godin) Corp., filed for protection last month from creditors who are owed nearly $50 million. The CCAA filing, which is to be heard in court next week, has cast uncertainty over the Sherbrooke St. site near St. Laurent Blvd. that was once hailed as an inspiration to projects aimed at gentrifying the lower Main.

 

Yet even as the Opus struggled to make basic payments - including former employees' salaries and $1.2 million in unpaid taxes to Revenue Quebec - receipts show it was paying above-market prices to suppliers owned by Opus vice-president Katherine Evans and her husband, Elio Pagliarulo.

 

The hotel was also billed by the couple for a few items that had nothing to do with hospitality: engagement cards for Evans and legal fees for her spouse. In 2009, Pagliarulo said he was the victim of extortion after he was unable to pay a $1.4-million debt to a prominent Quebec developer.

 

In an interview, Evans denied ever charging the Opus for personal expenses. She also insists that the two companies - a Côte des Neiges bakery owned by her and a cleaning service owned by Pagliarulo - offered the hotel competitive prices.

 

The two businesses are no longer suppliers for Opus Montreal, which is fully operational with a new general manager.

 

Like her father John Evans, CEO of the prominent Vancouver development company Trilogy Properties Corp., Katherine Evans said the Montreal Opus was one of many Canadian hotels hit by the global crisis that tightened lending practices and reduced 2009 hotel profits by a third in Canada, sending occupancy rates in downtown Montreal spiralling to 59 per cent, compared to 66 per cent this year, data from consulting firm PKF Canada show.

 

"It was the recession and we had purchased the hotel at the top of the market," she said.

 

The economic rebound of 2010 - including the return of Montreal's Grand Prix - didn't go far enough to buoy the hotel's finances, John Evans said.

 

"There was insufficient business to keep it afloat - that's what happened," he said. "The refinancing options were non-existent and the Americans are not travelling. It's a very difficult environment."

 

It was a stark change from the optimism of 2007 when Trilogy bought the hotel.

 

At the time, Evans said he was eager to grow the awardwinning brand of Trilogy's Opus Vancouver - a 96-room boutique hotel frequented by celebrities like Cher, Sarah McLachlan and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The Godin hotel - the heritage building that he rechristened as the Montreal Opus - was the "ideal launching pad," for a national expansion, Evans told The Gazette.

 

He pledged to invest millions of dollars to complete a restaurant, bar and terrace that the Godin's consortium of former owners - including a former division of Quebec's pension fund manager - had failed to open.

 

At the time, the Godin had difficulty obtaining a liquor licence because its former operators - who also ran several popular Montreal nightclubs - repeatedly ran afoul of Quebec liquor board regulations, a Gazette report from 2007 said.

 

The restaurant and lounge were soon packed on Saturday nights with glamorous revellers. Real estate company Devéloppements McGill Inc. cited the apparent success of the swank Opus when announcing their plan to convert the old Ekers Brewery on the other side of St. Laurent Blvd. into condos, one of several projects aimed at gentrifying the lower Main.

 

In fact, the hotel was losing money from the beginning, John Evans acknowledged.

 

As a cost-cutting measure, Katherine Evans said the hotel shed housekeeping and pastry staff and began outsourcing work to her and her husband's companies, Pâtisserie Duc de Lorraine and Entretien Ménager The Dogs.

 

But instead of saving money, receipts obtained by The Gazette show that Opus was paying full retail prices - $2.50 for a baguette, $1.40 per croissant and $2.10 per chocolatine - for items from the pastry shop, which is listed as a creditor for nearly $5,000. Hotels usually benefit from a wholesale rate because they buy in bulk.

 

What's more, internal emails say Duc de Lorraine actually replaced a former Opus supplier that was charging 67 cents per chocolatine and croissant.

 

"This will result in (an) increase of food cost for breakfast, against low revenues?" questioned one staff member in an email obtained by The Gazette.

 

The Opus even covered some of the bakery's expenses, including the payment of a $3,000 bill from a cheese supplier that was originally sent to Duc de Lorraine.

 

Katherine Evans denied any conflict of interest in having her Côte des Neiges bakery supply the Opus Hotel.

 

On the contrary, she said she was in a better position to offer the Opus deals, but claimed she couldn't do better than retail prices because her bakery sold high-quality "specialized" items.

 

"The items purchased are considered specialty items so we can't do much more for the pricing," she said.

 

Evans said the reason Opus was billed by cheese company "L'Expérience du Fromage" is that it acts as a supplier for both the hotel and Duc de Lorraine. She couldn't explain why the bill obtained by The Gazette had Duc de Lorraine crossed out as the client, and replaced with the word Opus.

 

In addition, during the summer months, the cleaning and maintenance company registered to Pagliarulo - Entretien Ménager The Dogs - was charging the hotel more than $10,000 a week, plus thousands of dollars in additional labour costs for maintenance at $20 an hour - a higher rate than what's paid in similar-sized unionized hotels. According to the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, which represents the majority of unionized workers in Montreal's hospitality sector, the average salary for comparable cleaning staff is $15 an hour, either with or without benefits, depending on the contract.

 

What's more, a spokesperson confirmed that Entretien Ménager The Dogs is not registered with the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail du Québec - the provincial body that governs on-the-job safety - as is required by law.

 

David Curell, the recently appointed general manager of the Opus Montreal, said Duc de Lorraine and Entretien Ménager The Dogs are no longer hotel suppliers: "We do not continue to do business with these two shops," he said. "Given the financial status of the hotel, some of the services were brought in house."

 

Curell could not comment on receipts showing that the Opus was defraying personal bills filed by Katherine Evans and Pagliarulo.

 

Evans claimed that a $450 invoice for engagement cards might have been sent to the Montreal Opus, but was paid by her privately. But she couldn't explain why the 136-room hotel was billed almost $5,000 in legal defence fees for Pagliarulo, who was found guilty in August of harassing a South Shore woman.

 

Evans said she wasn't aware of the case.

 

Pagliarulo couldn't be reached for comment, but media reports and court records suggest the divorced 51-year-old businessman was wracked with financial obligations.

 

A former co-owner of the bankrupt bakery chain Pâtisserie Pagel, Pagliarulo was also forced into personal bankruptcy in 2009 by a numbered company registered to Paolo Catania, the head of Construction Frank Catania and Assoc. and one of Quebec's largest construction companies.

 

Pagliarulo, who told media he owed Catania $1.4 million, accused the construction magnate of trying to extort money with death threats. During the same year, Catania was arraigned on charges of harassment, uttering death threats and extortion, but those charges were dropped in 2010.

 

Although Pagliarulo never had a formal position at Opus, he became a regular there after getting engaged to Evans this past summer; his Aston Martin sports car, was a regular sight outside the hotel, former employees said.

 

Two former employees told The Gazette they were personally reprimanded and fired by Pagliarulo.

 

"Whatever Elio said, you did," said Priscilla Lanni, who worked at KOKO as a bartender for four months.

 

"No one wanted to lose their jobs."

 

In July, he pleaded not guilty to allegedly assaulting and threatening a former hotel employee. The alleged assault stemmed from a dispute over missing vacation pay and salary - an issue that had become a point of contention for numerous workers, six former employees told The Gazette.

 

Lanni, along with former food and beverage director Alain Readman Valiquette, said they are still seeking compensation, while former waiter Roch Michel Thibault, who worked for five years at the Godin and Opus, said he is owed $3,500: "They are now refusing to give me anything."

 

According to the Commission des normes du travail, 11 complaints representing 36 former Opus employees were filed against hotel managers over some type of missing pay. The hotel has around 100 employees.

 

Curell acknowledged that "there were some payroll issues prior to my time," but said employees' salaries are now being paid: "It's a big concern of ours. Our last pay period was a success."

 

Katherine Evans said she couldn't comment on unpaid GST and PST owed to Revenue Quebec, or unpaid employees.

 

She did insist that Pagliarulo never gave orders to staff, and was key to improving operations at the hotel, which grew with the opening of the lounge and restaurant.

 

"There were many levels where he was helping us," she said. "We made lots of great changes."

 

Unfortunately for the Montreal Opus, those changes didn't return the hotel to profitability.

 

That's the goal for John Evans who says he must now find new financial backing.

 

"We continue to work to refinance the company," he said. "I didn't go to Montreal to not succeed."

 

alampert@ montrealgazette.com

 

twitter.com/RealDealMtl

 

The travellers and the investors are back. But challenges remain for the Canadian hotels, two years after the global economic crisis, as room prices remain stagnant.

 

Read more at montreal gazette.com/realdeal

 

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[booboohome2003]

PWC est le séquestre avec plein pouvoir de gestion et mise en vente; donc devrait se retrouver sur le marché sous peu.