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Bo Pelouse files for bankruptcy with 5,225 clients listed as creditors

Bill Migicovsky, one of 5,225 former Bo Pelouse clients, is not expecting to see a dime refunded in the wake of the company's bankruptcy.

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Like thousands of West Islanders left reaching for a shovel after the Bo Pelouse snow removal company suddenly shut down last month, Bill Migicovsky wondered if he’d ever be able to recover the $485 he paid to have his driveway and walkway cleared.

Now the 69-year-old Dorval resident has learned he is among over 5,225 former clients who are listed as creditors after the company declared bankruptcy this week.

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Migicovsky doubts he’ll ever see a dime after all the creditors try to recoup their losses. He’ll be getting in line with former clients, listed as unsecured creditors, who are potentially owed some $2.16 million worth of services.

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Rounding out the list are 24 former employees owed $2,849.43.

Bo Pelouse owner Marc Guindon filed bankruptcy papers Jan. 20 with Ginsberg Gingras & Associates, licensed insolvency trustees. The company’s liabilities are pegged at $2,678,479. Assets are $1.4 million, with a deficiency of $1,277, 476.

After perusing the 236-page bankruptcy documents, Migicovsky is having a hard time understanding how a company that pulled in over a bundle from driveway clients suddenly went belly-up on the eve of a snowstorm.

“If he was having (financial) problems, it doesn’t just happen in one day, like an act of God.

“He collected all this money.  We paid early for an ‘early-bird’ discount which we did every year, and then all of a sudden at the end of December he wakes up and realizes that he can’t run the business.

“There’s a special place in hell for these . . . ya know.”

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But not everyone is prepared to throw Guindon under the snow plow.

Frank Mancuso, the Sonic gas station owner in Pointe-Claire’s Valois neighbourhood, said Guindon had always paid his bills, till recently when he left him holding a $4,800 bill for unpaid diesel fuel.

When Mancuso’s story went public, hundreds of motorists across Montreal began gassing up at Sonic to help him recoup his losses.

Mancuso is not listed as a creditor in the bankruptcy documents because he had an informal agreement with Guindon. “We didn’t even sign anything because it was just so long we’d been doing (business),”  Mancuso said.

As for the profitability of the snow removal business, Dexter Church of DLC recently told the West Island Gazette that profit margins are not as big as some might think. Once you subtract cost of diesel fuel, tractor repairs and employee wages, Church said profits can turn to slush without a solid business plan.

Clients like Migicovsky and his wife Esty Feldman must now make a claim as unsecured creditors if they hope  to recoup some of their money.  But Migicovsky is not holding his breath.

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“Hopeful? Yeah, we’ll go to Florida with it,” he said with a laugh. “You know that story, slim and none.”

Meantime, he found another local snow removal company — Entreprise R. Landry — to clear his driveway, but not his walkway. It cost him $250, taxes included, bringing his total snow bill for this relatively mild winter to $730.

Migicovsky said clearing big piles of snow poses a physical challenge at his age. “I’m 69. Shovelling the driveway is a big ordeal.”

People have been known to suffer cardiac arrests shovelling their driveways. “I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of that this winter,” Migicovsky said.

Is there something he’d like to say to Guindon, besides ‘I want a refund’?

“Yeah, you could’ve given us some advance notice. This just didn’t happen over night.”

jmeagher@postmedia.com

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