Laliberté bidding to buy back Cirque

Founder sold for more than a billion in 2015

MONTREAL - Cirque du Soleil founder and former CEO Guy Laliberté wants to get back into the circus biz.

On Sunday on the popular Radio-Canada talk show Tout le monde en parle, Laliberté announced he is going to launch a bid to try to buy back the Cirque du Soleil. In an opinion piece in the Gazette earlier this month, Laliberté wrote: “A few days before the registration deadline for the battle royal, I am deciding whether or not I’m going to jump into that wrestling ring. …”

On Sunday he jumped into the ring.

In 2015, Laliberté sold the Cirque du Soleil to American private equity investment firm TPG Capital, Chinese investment company Fosun and the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec for a reported US$1.5 billion.

In late March, the Montreal-based circus laid off 95 per cent of its staff, close to 4,700 employees, after all of its shows around the world were shuttered as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Senior management then said they were evaluating all options, including seeking bankruptcy protection. Three weeks ago, TPG, Fosun and the Caisse injected an additional US$50 million to try to keep the company alive.

In a phone interview while driving to Tout le monde en parle, Laliberté stressed he was mounting a bid for Cirque because of his love of what the Cirque does and that money was not the main driving force behind his decision.

“It’s finding a perfect balance with a good healthy Cirque financially but also where the love of the public is coming back and mostly where the fire is within the workforce,” Laliberté said. “It doesn’t have to be US$1.5 billion of value to be viable.