Corporate Restructuring and the Financial Elite in Quebec: a Study of the White Birch Paper Case
This article aims to contribute to the study of the financial elite operating in Quebec by analyzing the case of the company White Birch Papers in the pulp and paper sector. Having entered in 2010 into a financial restructuring process governed by the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), this company saw its current management rules modified in order to comply with a recovery plan aimed at protecting and enhancing the financial wealth of certain investors. The article traces the roles and action logics of two groups belonging to the financial elite in the implementation of this recovery plan, one being the group of creditors and owners of the company and the other the financial experts responsible for advising the legal authorities during the restructuring process. Highlighting the functions and strategies deployed by these actors in this process illustrates ways in which contemporary financial elites can take advantage of industrial crises and thereby contribute to intensifying the financialization of the economy.