It will be at least a week before one of Canada’s largest livestock companies learns if it is the owner of a mothballed hog plant.
On Sept. 16, an Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench judge approved the sale for $3.3 million of JTB Canadian Pork of Barrhead, Alta., to XL Foods, owned by Edmonton-based Nilsson Brothers.
The 100,000 sq. foot hog slaughtering and processing facility was originally designed to kill up to 2,000 hogs a day for the Asian market. The facility has never opened.
People or companies opposed to the sale have until Oct. 5 to appeal the judge’s decision to award the $20 million hog plant to Nilsson Bothers.
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“I fully anticipate one of the hog interests will appeal the decision,” said Lee Nilsson, one of the chief executive officers of Nilsson Brothers.
There have been no appeals yet, said Don MacLean with Price-WaterhouseCoopers, the receiver in charge of the hog processing plant’s bankruptcy.
Nilsson Brothers is an Alberta-based livestock business with interests in meat packing plants, auction markets, feeder buying services, insurance and more than 100,000 acres of land.
Plant construction by Churchill Corp. subsidiary Stuart Olson Construction was stopped in February 2002 to allow investors to refinance the project.
Gary Bardell, president of Churchill Corp., said the company would like to see the decision finalized as soon as possible.
“We don’t want it to drag on any longer,” said Bardell.
If the judge’s decision is final, Churchill will recover about $3.3 million of the $5 million in bad debt allowances on the project.
