SALE OF STC ASSETS

Province could make $29M

The provincial government says the total amount of cash it will receive through the sale of STC assets may not be released until STC’s annual report is published after the end of the fiscal year on March 31, 2018.

By Wednesday afternoon, the government said the sale of all the Crown’s assets will fetch an estimated $29 million.

That figure was released just after Joe Hargrave, minister responsible for STC, told reporters the province was likely to get more than $25 million but less than the $25.6-million valuation attached to the assets by advisory firm KPMG. The government later clarified that the appraised value of all assets is $25.7 million.

Assets being sold include properties, buses, trailers and other furniture and equipment.

The updated figure came as a clarification from the province’s Crown Investments Corporation (CIC), and it’s “subject to change as contracts are finalized,” so the government isn’t yet giving the actual total sale price.

The minister said the province was “getting a fair deal.”

STC’s terminal and head office building in Regina cost $26.2 million to build. It was sold to the City of Regina last month for $16.25 million.

The public may never know just how much the province will get for each of the 45 STC buses. The government can’t disclose the amounts, due to a contractual obligation with the buyer.

They’re being sold, along with all of the trailers, to Hilco Industrial, a liquidation company out of Ontario. The buyer will decide when and if the purchase prices of the buses will be released, Hargrave said.

“The government is not in a position to just sell one bus here and one trailer here,” Hargrave said about the bulk sale.

“That would be a full-time job,” he added, before noting that the deal with the liquidation company was “by far the highest value of all the people that bid.”

However, he later said: “There was an option to parcel them off.”

In fact, he said there were bids considered for just a single bus.

“Had bids come in at a reasonable price on the units, we would have sold them, one bus here, one bus there.”

After being asked a number of times whether Hilco Industrial was given a discount on the buses for buying in bulk, he responded: “They put in by far the best tender.”

Ten companies bid on the fleet and equipment. Of those, six bid on just parts of the fleet.

NDP CIC critic Carla Beck said the government’s winding down of STC, including the sale of assets, lacks transparency.

“The government, what I’m hearing from them, is (saying), ‘just trust us.’ ”

At least one group, Beck said, has called for the provincial auditor to determine the full cost of winding down STC.