The 1670 royal charter signed by King Charles II establishing Hudson's Bay at the Manitoba Museum in 2020. More bidders are coming forward to express their interest in buying the historic document.Supplied/The Canadian Press
Competition is heating up in the auction for the 1670 founding charter of the Hudson’s Bay Company, with more bidders coming forward to express their interest in buying the historic document to donate to Canadian public institutions, court documents indicate.
The new filing made with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Friday confirms previous reporting by The Globe and Mail that there was interest from other parties in the process.
The failed retailer is now proposing a date of Oct. 15 for the auction to take place, and has requested a court hearing on Sept. 29 to approve the auction process.
Amid the dissolution of Canada’s oldest retailer, the preservation of the document – which played a key role in the country’s history – has been a source of concern expressed by the federal government and First Nations leaders, as well as historians and cultural groups.
Amid a financial crisis and struggling under $1-billion in debt, Hudson’s Bay was granted court protection from its creditors on March 7 under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act. The Globe first reported in April that Hudson’s Bay was contemplating selling its charter.
In court proceedings, the company separated its art and artifacts collection, including the charter, from the sale process for the rest of its corporate assets. Reflect Advisors LLC, the advisory firm overseeing the sale, told potential buyers that they would be informed of the process for the charter auction once it received court approval.
While interested parties were told that Reflect would not accept bids ahead of the auction, one party did come forward. On July 26, the company withdrew the charter from the auction process in order to pursue a $12.5-million offer for the document from the billionaire Weston family’s holding company, Wittington Investments Ltd.
Wittington proposed to donate the charter to the Canadian Museum of History and to make an additional $1-million donation to fund consultations with Indigenous peoples on how the charter should be presented.
The court scheduled a hearing into the Wittington deal and set a deadline for other parties to make submissions on the matter. On Aug. 21, Canadian businessman David Thomson filed documents indicating his interest in submitting a bid of at least $15-million to buy the charter and donate it to the Archives of Manitoba – along with a $2-million to fund consultations – through his personal family holding company, DKRT Family Corp. (The Woodbridge Co. Ltd., another holding company and primary investment vehicle for the Thomson family, owns The Globe.)
Because of the additional interest, the court hearing was adjourned. “Reflect has also received additional indications of interest from other parties interested in acquiring the Charter and donating it to other Canadian public institutions since August 21, 2025,” Friday’s court filing stated.
At the time of its offer, Wittington urged Reflect not to allow the charter to be sold at auction. The firm is now considering whether it will participate in the upcoming process, according to Mr. Zalev’s affidavit.
Reflect will now act as auctioneer, a change from plans expressed when the auction of the charter and the rest of the company’s art and artifacts collections were first developed. At that time, fine-art auction house Heffel was hired to run the sale.
Any bidders who want to make an offer for the charter will have to bid at least $15-million, and to match the proposals from Wittington and DKRT, according to an affidavit sworn on Friday by Reflect co-founder and managing director Adam Zalev. The process would set a deadline of Oct. 3 for bidders to submit their proposals ahead of the auction.
Those new offers would also have to commit to donating the document to a public institution, keeping it in Canada and facilitating the sharing of the charter with other institutions across the country “through collaborative exhibitions, sharing high quality digital images of the Charter, and interactive educational programs and initiatives,” according to the Hudson’s Bay court filing.
All details of the process are pending court approval. Any successful bid in the auction will also require court approval to move forward.
The historic document, which includes the wax seal of King Charles II, for years was kept in a protective case and displayed at the company’s headquarters in Toronto.
The document has recently been relocated to a secure facility, according to the court filing, where it will stay until a successful bidder is determined.
“The proposed Charter Auction Process will respect the cultural and historical significance of the Charter, while also creating a platform for the Company to ensure that the consideration to be received for the assets is reasonable and fair for the benefit of stakeholders,” the filing says.