For sale: Bixi bike-share company

After a month of bankruptcy protection, bike-share company Bixi is officially up for sale, with the deadline for bids March 10.

Bixi was funded by the city of Montreal and owes the city $31.3 million. It also owes other creditors $20 million. Recently some citizens and counsellors of Montreal were irked to find that Bixi had paid employees $232,000 in bonuses in December.

Since declaring bankruptcy on January 20, the company has had a court-appointed trustee in the Richter Advisory Group. Richter is coordinating Bixi’s sale, and one of its insolvency experts Raymond Massi says, “A virtual data room will be established so that qualified potential buyers will be able to gain access to relevant information on this business opportunity in an efficient and timely basis.”

Vancouver’s floundering bike-share plan is going ahead without Bixi at its supplier.