BURST
Ian Gillespie, founder of one of B.C.’s most prominent development companies, Westbank, appears to have acknowledged in text messages last year that some of his company’s signature projects were not profitable, behind schedule, over budget, or struggling to sell units, according to court filings by one of his former vice-presidents.
If the messages are authentic, they provide rare insight into the struggles the company has been facing at its projects, which include some of the most expensive condo developments in the city.
A Westbank spokesperson said she could not comment on the text messages, and that their authenticity has not been proven in court.
Rhiannon Mabberley, a former vice-president of Westbank Corp., filed a notice of claim in December in B.C. Supreme Court for breach of contract, alleging the company owes her $1.2 million based on an employment agreement.
In its response to her claim, Westbank said those payments were “dependent on the profits received by Westbank” and these were not met on projects of which she was a part.
As Bloomberg News first reported this week, an affidavit filed by Mabberley in late January as part of her lawsuit included text messages that were allegedly sent to her in September 2025 by Gillespie as the two discussed bonus payments she said were owed to her.
“We arranged your bonuses to be based on the profits of the different projects we were developing and we agreed that you would participate in the profits of those projects. The unfortunate reality for both of us and the rest of the company is these projects were not profitable,” said a text included in the affidavit.
One text to Mabberley included in the affidavit remarked on woes at two Westbank projects in downtown Vancouver, The Alberni, a 43-storey, mixed-use residential tower at 1550 Alberni, and The Butterfly, a 57-storey condo tower at 1033 Nelson Street, as well as First Light in Seattle and King Street in Toronto.
“Alberni still has many unsold units and VTBs (vendor-take-back mortgages) outstanding, Butterfly is well over budget and closings are slow and uncertain, the same is worse for First Light and King St., with an increasing budget and increasing uncertainty in our ability to close those units and sell the remaining units is many tens of millions underwater.”
The same text message also referred to the massive Oakridge Park project, which Westbank is redeveloping with QuadReal. It said that “Oakridge is way behind schedule.”
Another text to Mabberley in the affidavit commented on disappointment at the price Westbank got from OPTrust in late August for selling its entire stake in Sen̓áḵw, a massive high-rise, rental project near the Burrard Bridge that it was developing with the Squamish Nation.
“I’m sure you know by now we closed the Sen̓áḵw sale on Friday afternoon,” the text stated. “It was quite the process and OPT renegotiated multiple times right to the end despite us thinking a deal was done. The last-minute negotiations resulted in me having to accept a 30 per cent haircut from the original price I agreed to with POT, which itself was 50 per cent less than we had agreed to last year.”
Mabberley started at Westbank in 2008 and initially worked on the company’s Woodward’s project, according to her claim. In 2012, she was promoted to lead representative on Westbank’s TELUS Garden project, also in downtown Vancouver. After working on the Oakridge Park project and getting through the pandemic, Mabberley signalled her desire to resign from Westbank around September 2021.
After this, she and Gillespie, according to her claim, “entered into a period of negotiation and discussions” and agreed for her to continue her employment with Westbank until at least February 2025. The terms for this included an increase in her salary of $100,000 for the years 2022 to 2024 and a $1.2 million bonus.
This was not dependent on any “financial performance metric” of Mabberley, Westbank or related companies, according to her claim. From 2022 to 2024, she was not included in any regular profit sharing or bonuses and understood these would be suspended in exchange for the $1.2 million bonus paid in February 2025.
In December 2024, Mabberley was presented with a document that said she was getting a salary increase of $25,000 per year and she would get a one-time bonus of $200,000 in early 2025.
After she tried to reach Gillespie to seek clarification on the changes, he ceased communications and cancelled weekly meetings, according to her claim. She stayed with the company until May 2025.
In its response, Westbank said payment of the “profit participation payment was dependent on profits received by Westbank from the projects. … As of Feb. 28, 2025, Westbank had not closed on any of the projects.”
The claim has been set to be heard in late October.
Other developers and projects have also faced headwinds in recent years as investors have retreated from the market and demand and prices, in particular, for luxury presale condos have fallen dramatically.
With research by Susan Lazaruk and Carolyn Soltau