Alaska-Alberta train project files for 'creditor protection'

The Alaska-Alberta railroad project is hoping to sell the company in the aftermath of the Bridging Finance scandal, seeking to avoid liquidation of the enterprise.

“The company intends to commence a court-approved sale and investor and solicitation process to pursue refinancing of the loan with other investors,” A2A said in a press release Wednesday.

The press release said that Sean McCoshen, who had been listed as the owner and founder, will not be involved in the attempt to save the company.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers has demanded payment from the railroad and McCoshen “of all amounts outstanding” under the railroad loans. The single largest item in the Bridging Finance portfolio was the railroad project, a total of more than $300 million in Canadian dollars, including loans, convertible debt and equity.

The press release does not mention who is running the company, but that the company “believes that the A2A rail project is sound, and has already made significant progress toward full financing, above and beyond the development capital provided by Bridging Finance over the past five years.”

McCoshen spent borrowed money on the railroad, funds supplied by Bridging Finance, a company now under receivership in Canada that was headed by David Sharpe, co-founder of the railroad project.

A forensic auditor this spring claimed that McCoshen’s net worth was a negative $96 million. McCoshen has borrowed hundreds of millions from Bridging Finance. Sharpe has denied that $19.6 million deposited in his account by McCoshen was a kickback.

Last fall McCoshen gave $250,000 to the Faculty of Law at Queen's University to help start the David Sharpe Professorship in Indigenous Law.

The debt of A2A has been guaranteed by McCoshen and his companies. About $25.5 million in Canadian dollars of the A2A loan was advanced to a personal account of McCoshen, according to the receiver’s report.