Creditors have voted to give Victoria’s Sitka Surfboard Corp. five months to develop a map for its future.
The outdoor clothing and surfboard company has been given until May 26, 2016, to come up with a proposal to deal with its debt.
About 95 per of creditors who either appeared at a Tuesday meeting in Victoria, or held a proxy document, voted to give the company that time to craft a plan for the future, said trustee George Abakhan of Abakhan and Associates.
Sitka Surfboard owes $3.5 million to creditors, the trustee said.
The plan has not yet been drawn up, Abakhan said.
If creditors had refused to give Sitka the five months, the company would have gone into bankruptcy, he said.
Company founders René Gauthier and Andrew Paine developed the concept for Sitka while attending UVic. They opened their first store in 2004 and later opened a location in Vancouver that closed this year.
Sitka’s retail store in Victoria moved a few weeks ago into 1219 Government St. at Trounce Alley. Gauthier said recently that company operations are being examined closely to find ways to reduce costs.
