Talk:Brookfield Place (Toronto)

Slimming down

I have incorporated the previous four articles (BCE Place, Bay Wellington Tower, Canada Trust Tower (Toronto) and TD/Canada Trust Tower) into this one article. There was, not surprisingly, significant overlap between the information in all the articles. As with the Commerce Court article, there is little need to have a separate article on every component of the complex. --Skeezix1000 21:56, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Controversy

BCE Place was first owned by Brookfield Developments, a subsidiary of Bell Canada Enterprises. To finance some or all of BCE Place Construction, Brookfield issued $400 million (Canadian) dollars worth of debentures, a type of bond not legally secured by the building itself. A substantial portion of these bonds were bought by retail investors, largely based on the widely held belief that any part of the Bell Canada Enterprises business empire would be equally honourable with respect to its debts. When the Toronto Real Estate market suffered a significant decline, ownership of the building was transferred from the company that issued the debentures to another corporation. The debenture-issuing BCE subsidiary, in short order, declared bankruptcy, causing great financial loss to debenture-holders. In a media release, Brookfield explained the differences between a debenture and a mortgage bond. Legal action, to no avail was attempted by the debenture holders. BCE (and later, tacitly renamed Brookfield Place) experienced a multi-fold increase in market value, but no effort was ever made to compensate the original debenture holders. Few people who walk through this beautiful building are aware that the largest commercial building was funded by unpaid loans, from retail investors, many who suffered financial calamity due to the slight-of-hand of the Bell Canada Enterprises group of companies. 177.73.101.244 (talk) 23:04, 28 September 2023 (UTC)