A Real Estate Mogul Fights With Canadian Pension Funds Over Mall Space

Few people in Canada had heard of Ruby Liu when she emerged this year with an ambitious plan to reinvent dozens of shuttered Hudson’s Bay Co. outlets, the remnants of a bankrupt department store chain that’s played an outsize role in the country’s history.

The owner of three shopping centers and a golf course in British Columbia, Liu said she reaped $1 billion building and selling a mall in China. She now intends to spend about C$450 million ($325 million) buying the leases of 25 Hudson’s Bay stores for a new retail chain.