Groupe Capitales Médias

Groupe Capitales Médias, a Quebec City, Quebec-based media company, filed an NOI on August 19, listing approximately $25.9 million in liabilities, including $8.0 million to Investissement Québec. The company was created in 2015 to purchase all the daily newspapers outside of Montreal that were at the time owned by Gesca, a Power Corporation entity. The newspapers are Le Soleil (Québec), Le Quotidien (Saguenay), Le Nouvelliste (Trois Rivières), La Tribune (Sherbrooke), La Voix de l'Est (Granby) and Le Droit (Ottawa). The sole shareholder is Martin Cauchon, a former Federal Minister of Justice. Attributing its financial difficulties to an erosion of advertising revenue to global digital players such as Facebook and Google, and to a lesser extent lower circulation, the company has been unprofitable in the past three years and has run out of cash. PwC is the proposal trustee and interim receiver and will be launching a sales process for the business in September. Counsel is Stikeman Elliott for IQ, DS Avocats for the company and McCarthy Tétrault for PwC.