The court-appointed monitor overseeing the sale of Monette Group’s 274,000 acres was barred from choosing a winning bid on any of it until Sept. 1. That restriction has now lifted — and it lifted as the company draws the last of a $90 million lifeline.
This process is being watched closely because of its scale and timeframe. There’s relevance in how what a forced seller of this size does to not only to its farm business but also the larger farmland market.
FTI Consulting Canada, the monitor, told the court in June that “this amount of farmland hitting the market all at one time will be unprecedented and accordingly it is yet to be determined how the market will absorb the supply.”
What The Market Has Said So Far
The clearest read available came in August, and it was not encouraging.
On Aug. 19, the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta approved the sale of roughly 3,100 acres at Aguila, Ariz., along with a cold storage facility and a seed plant, to Nevada-based Byner Cattle Company. In an affidavit sworn Aug. 10, Monette Group CEO Darrel Monette said the retained broker marketed the property by “directly contacting 17 prospective purchasers active in the agricultural sector.” The monitor’s report adds that the listing drew 41 hits on the listing platform and 37 views of the broker’s own website.
The result: “This was the only offer received for the Aguila Farm.”
The purchase price is under seal by a separate order granted the same day. Monette argued in his affidavit that public disclosure “could impact any future sale process.”
It was the first U.S. property to clear. It was not the first sale — 19 Saskatchewan parcels near Hafford, together with buildings, grain storage and equipment, were approved May 1 for sale to G and K Walter Farms and Harvesting Ltd. and closed May 13. Both transactions ran through expedited sale approval and vesting orders, a track that operates alongside the main sale process rather than through it.
Across that main process, the monitor distributed marketing materials to approximately 208 strategic and financial parties.
More About The Response So Far
Monette’s Sale and Investment Solicitation Process (SISP) contains no non-binding round — no letter-of-intent stage where a buyer can put a number on paper and then go walk the ground. Under the approved procedures, a bid qualifies only if it arrives as a signed definitive transaction agreement with completed exhibits, accompanied by evidence of financing, and remains irrevocable until a successful bidder is selected or the deal closes.
That is a demanding ask on land a buyer may never have seen, and it front-loads the cost of bidding.
The listings were also late. All properties were on the market by late July, six weeks after the process opened June 29. British Columbia did not go live until July 31 — roughly ten weeks before bids close.
What Changed Sept. 1
Sept. 1 was not a bid deadline. Bids have been accepted since June 29, and the monitor has spent the summer collecting offers. As of Sept. 1, it can begin selecting them.
The hard wall is Oct. 15, the Binding Bid Deadline. Bids submitted on or before Sept. 1 are on a track seeking court approval by Oct. 31. Bids arriving after Sept. 1 and before the deadline seek approval by the process termination date — noon Mountain Time on Nov. 30.
There’s a detail buried in those dates. The stay of proceedings protecting Monette from its creditors runs to Nov. 13. Anything landing late in the window therefore needs an extension to close.
What is For Sale
| Jurisdiction | Acres | Lead broker |
| Saskatchewan | ~117,000–129,000 | Hammond Realty, with Sutton-Harrison Realty and Royal LePage Martin-Liberty |
| Montana | 54,482 | Premier Land Company |
| Manitoba | ~49,000 | Hammond Realty |
| British Columbia | ~45,000 | LandQuest Realty Corp. |
| Colorado | 4,079 | Clark & Associates Land Brokers |
| Arizona | 3,157 | Southwest Land Associates |
North of the Border, a Smaller Pool
Saskatchewan and Manitoba both limit non-resident ownership of farmland to 40 acres. The Saskatchewan and Manitoba packages — the bulk of the offering — must find domestic buyers, in provinces where a distressed seller has put more than 150,000 acres in front of them at once.
The U.S. tracts carry no equivalent restriction. Roughly 61,700 acres in Montana, Colorado and Arizona can clear into a buyer pool that includes outside capital.
British Columbia Has Already Failed Twice
The B.C. ranches are the cautionary case. Roughly 45,000 acres across 12 properties drew no sales at a Jan. 9 deadline. A second attempt through a Ritchie Bros. tender-by-auction closed March 3, also without a sale. Title concerns were blamed at the time.
The ground is now listed as 11 packages with LandQuest Realty Corp. It is the third attempt to sell it.
How It Got Here
Darrel Monette took over the family operation in 2013 and scaled and diversified it quickly — grain growth across Western Canada, U.S. entry in 2019, cattle and produce added in 2021, and a vegetable processing facility near Outlook, Sask.
Revenue climbed from $45 million in 2017 to $347 million. Earnings went the other way: EBITDA fell from $83 million in 2022 to $37 million as expansion into lower-margin produce and cattle consumed capital, interest rates rose and land valuations flattened.
A senior facilities agreement — originally roughly $950 million, led by Scotiabank — matured April 15, 2026, with $829.5 million in principal and interest due. An attempt to raise about $400 million through a minority stake sale found no buyer. The group filed for creditor protection under Canada’s Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act on April 28, covering 18 Monette corporations and three limited partnerships. Court filings put secured debt near $905 million against approximately $1.24 billion in assets and $1.08 billion in liabilities.
A parallel Chapter 15 proceeding in U.S. Bankruptcy Court recognized the Canadian case as the foreign main proceeding on May 13. No order approving the Arizona sale had been posted to that docket as of Sept. 1; an omnibus hearing was scheduled Aug. 25.
The farm is still operating. Monette said at the filing that his priority was to “keep farming,” and the group has continued through the 2026 growing season.
More on Monette Farms’ Restructure
As of July 31, Monette had drawn $88.2 million of a $90 million debtor-in-possession facility, according to the monitor’s third report. Cash on hand stood at $12.3 million. The forecast has the group holding $5 million on Nov. 13, which is the day its creditor protection expires.
That is the frame for everything that happens between now and the Oct. 15 bid deadline. The land has to sell, and it has to sell in a window that is now measured in weeks.
