Cirque du Soleil’s longtime Chief Executive Daniel Lamarre may soon prefer to be on the high wire than in the C-suite.
A group of lenders angry over Cirque du Soleil’s bankruptcy plans are mulling a plan to remove Lamarre, who has been Cirque’s CEO since 2001, The Post has learned.
The lenders — who hold some $1.1 billion in debt that Cirque can no longer afford — say they were blindsided by Cirque’s plan to sell itself right back to its current owners, including majority owner TPG Capital. The controversial plan seeks to give the lenders — a group that includes Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly — a minority stake in the global brand in exchange for wiping out their debt.
The lenders have asked the Quebec superior court judge overseeing the process to squash Cirque’s plan to give TPG and the other investors a 55-percent stake in the company in exchange for a $400 million lifeline.
If the judge refuses this request, they plan to ask him to replace Lamarre as CEO and as a board member along with the rest of the board, sources tell The Post. They would seek to replace Lamarre and the board with an independent restructuring officer, these sources said.
The lenders plan to argue that Cirque’s current leadership unfairly favors the investors, a group that also includes Chinese conglomerate Fosun and Quebec’s public pension manager Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.
This view was highlighted Tuesday in an 11-page court document that blasted Cirque’s restructuring plan for having “afforded special treatment to its shareholders.”
“The company’s decision to [again] favor the interests of its shareholders to the detriment of the secured lenders gives rise to significant concerns about the company’s governance,” the creditors complained in the court filing.
TPG and Cirque spokespeople declined to comment. Lamarre took the helm of the trailblazing, acrobatic circus act in 2001, when it was already an international sensation. He was hired by Cirque’s colorful co-founder Guy Laliberte, who sold his remaining stake to Caisse in February.
The two men met back in 1986 when Lamarre, a Quebec native, was working in public relations, according to an interview he gave Ontario lifestyle magazine Fifty-Five Plus.
Lamarre agreed to represent Cirque — only to waive his fee because the roving band of street performers couldn’t afford to pay.
“At the time, [Laliberte] couldn’t pay my bills because Cirque was struggling financially,” he told the magazine.
{ SOURCE: New York Post }
