The insolvency of Groupe Sélection bodes very badly for Rémi Vigneault, a major shareholder in the company until 2013. After an eight-year battle, the businessman obtained a judgment last year for CEO Réal Bouclin buys back his shares, as agreed. But instead of being content with the check for 12 million, he appealed because he found the sum insufficient.
Today insolvent, the company of residences for the elderly does not have much to give him. “Is there going to be something left one day to validate my claim? asks the businessman, who now owns a shellfish fishing business in Florida.
” I am preoccupied. My recourse goes beyond the companies, we have a personal recourse against him, says Rémi Vigneault. But it would be premature to think that my debt is not threatened. »
Legal saga
Rémi Vigneault has been suing Bouclin since 2016 to get paid the 28.53% of Selection shares he held, under an agreement signed after his retirement.
“At midnight minus one, just before the start of the trial, he gave me what he thought it was worth,” says Rémi Vigneault. But his $13.8 million check was too low, the Superior Court ruled last year. According to the decision, the former partner of Bouclin should have received 4.7 million more, in addition to substantial interest, or a total of some 12 million additional.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY RÉMI VIGNEAULT
Rémi Vigneault will have to work hard to see the color of his millions.
Still dissatisfied, Rémi Vigneault appealed the case. According to him, the judge should have granted him more compensation of 6.2 million for “oppression” – the ill-treatment suffered as a shareholder. In the meantime, he has still not received the 12 million already granted.
Beyond his claim, he says he worries even more for those who depend on Selection.
I am much more concerned for the employees who risk losing their jobs, for the subcontractors who risk bankruptcy…
Rémi Vigneault, shareholder of Groupe Sélection until 2013
Members of his family and friends housed in residences of Selection are anxious, he says. “They called me to find out if they should move. »
The end of a friendship
“Réal Bouclin is a childhood friend who approached me in 2002 to finance his project, says Rémi Vigneault. He had a fairly precise demographic vision, he aimed well! »
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Réal Bouclin, CEO of Selection Group
Since then, their relationship has taken a different turn. Rémi Vigneault says he is not surprised by the “incomprehensible” and “unacceptable” portrait of Selection’s finances painted by PwC on Wednesday as a representative of its bankers. They criticize Bouclin for his “lavish lifestyle” financed with company cash.
“Mr. Bouclin, when it comes time to pay, he’s not there,” he said.
As part of his lawsuit, Rémi Vigneault says he repeatedly asked Selection for financial statements. “When we were trying to get the numbers out, we were dealing with firefighter management,” he says. The company made its payments urgently, at the last minute.
He has little doubt that his former partner used his businesses to afford “personal benefits”, as PwC claims.
For example, I can tell you that until my departure in 2013, his plane expenses were paid for by the company.
Remi Vigneault
He also believes that the Group wanted to take too big bites.
“I was in charge of finance and development at the time,” he says. I would never have accepted that we put ourselves in situations like Molson. I advanced from my own money, I knew the capacities we had. »
The Group acquired the land of the former brewery on rue Notre-Dame in 2019 with Montoni. Sélection was however unable to respond to a call for funds of 1.8 million from its other partner in the project, the Fonds de solidarité FTQ.
A breath of fresh air for Bouclin
In the circumstances, the former shareholder of Selection regrets having appealed the judgment which granted him 12 million. “Probably Réal was very happy the day I decided to appeal because it gave him some oxygen. »
Today, the millions that could be used to pay Rémi Vigneault can only come from the personal fortune of his ex-partner.
In Laval, Bouclin’s residence is worth 5.5 million, according to the City. In 2002, the boss of Sélection however acquired it through the Fiducie Réal Bouclin.
He also has access to a vast penthouse of more than 10,000 square feet, at 41e floor of a Miami Beach tower, acquired in 2013 for the tidy sum of 15 million US, according to public documents from the county.
But the condo also belongs to a Bouclin trust, as well as two other trusts bearing the names of Yves Mongeau and Robert Laplante. The two men are respectively Senior Vice-President, Real Estate and Executive Vice-President, Finance, at Groupe Sélection.
The professor of taxation at Laval University André Lareau is formal: a priori, these assets would be out of reach of a possible seizure.
“The trust is another person,” he explains. She is not liable for the debts, unless the transfer of the property was made to the trust in order to defraud its creditors or if it rendered Mr. Bouclin insolvent, in which case a court may then render this transfer unenforceable against the creditors. »
In short, “the hockey game is lost in advance,” judge André Lareau. “You don’t even put on your skates. »