Cirque du Soleil has no comparables in the circus industry. What began as a small creative laboratory in Baie-Saint-Paul has evolved into an entertainment multinational that extends its tentacles to the four corners of the planet. However, the last few years have been tough for the Quebec circus locomotive. Here is what we know today about its financial health.
It is not easy to assess the financial health of a company like Cirque du Soleil. It is not listed on the stock exchange, which makes the data difficult to access. We must therefore rely on fragmentary information, which paints a mixed portrait of his situation.
In February 2025, the company eliminated 110 positions at its head office in the Saint-Michel district of Montreal. Three months later, she postponed the launch of her new show. Added to this is the abolition last March of 100 positions, including 70 in Montreal.
So, how is the Circus doing? More or less well, according to S&P Global. The rating agency lowered the company’s rating from B+ to B last September, in addition to giving it a “negative outlook.”
Since then, Cirque du Soleil’s performance has been lackluster. In the first quarter of 2026, revenues fell by 7%, but profit still increased by 50%, say S&P Global experts Samantha Stone and Sean Mogan in a report dated June 11. The company is profitable, but less than a few years ago, they specified at Duty.
“Revenue growth is expected in the second half of 2026 and 2027,” the authors note. On the other hand, show occupancy rates were expected to remain low over the next 12 months due to the macroeconomic context which is pushing consumers to be cautious.
“Like our entire industry, however, we operate in an environment that remains sensitive to external factors,” explains Cirque du Soleil spokesperson Marc-Étienne Nolin by email. The approximately 3,200 employees – including nearly 1,000 at the Montreal head office – could, however, benefit from a little respite. “To date, no wave of layoffs is planned,” confirms Mr. Nolin.
Québécois, dubaiotes, chinois, américain, ontarien
Cirque du Soleil’s shareholding has evolved significantly since its creation in 1984. Founded by Guy Laliberté, Gilles Ste-Croix and Daniel Gauthier, it was then a pure Quebec product. At the turn of the 2000s, Guy Laliberté became the sole shareholder of the Cirque. In 2008, investors from Dubai will get their hands on 20% of the shares, a first foreign stake.
Seven years later, there was a dramatic twist: the American company TPG Capital became the majority shareholder of Cirque, while the Chinese investment fund Fosun and the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (today La Caisse) bought most of the remaining shares. Laliberté retains 10% of the shares, then sells them with a timing unbeatable in 2020, just before the pandemic and the collapse of the entertainment sector.
Today, the main – but not majority – shareholder of Cirque du Soleil is the Ontario investment fund Catalyst Group, followed by the American companies GDA Luma and Hein Park. The Caisse confirmed Duty no longer have a stake in the company.
Despite everything, “I think we can say that Cirque is still Quebec because everything is done in Montreal,” thinks François Colbert, professor at HEC Montreal. Public perception also goes in this direction, believes the holder of the Carmelle and Rémi-Marcoux Chair of Arts Management.
Louis Patrick Leroux, rector of Saint-Paul University and researcher specializing in contemporary circus, sees things differently. Since Catalyst came on the scene, “we find ourselves in a situation where Montreal is emptied of its meaning. It remains the headquarters, it remains a place where costumes are made, it remains a storefront which has symbolic value, but the heart no longer seems to be there.”
Bet on sure values
“In 2015, when Guy Laliberté sold [la grande majorité de] its shares in Cirque du Soleil, we were really afraid of losing this flagship, explains Louis Patrick Leroux. “Everyone worried that the very nature of Cirque du Soleil would be forever distorted, and that’s true to a certain extent. HAS”
The company has become “a big entrepreneurial machine,” says Mr. Leroux. It also diversified, purchasing, among others, the Blue Man Group. That said, the production rate of a new show of at least 30 or 40 million every 18 months was no longer sustainable, according to him.
Thus, the Cirque decided to resume old shows which had been scrapped, but which were working well, notes Mr. Leroux. In short, bet on safe values and favor “consolidation”.
For François Colbert, we should not be overly concerned about investment funds taking a stake in the Cirque’s shareholding. “It would surprise me if shareholders put their noses into creation,” he said. Where the fund pushes the most is that it has to be profitable. […] Maybe they’re less tolerant of a so-so show. HAS”
“Show business is risky”
The state of health of Cirque du Soleil in some way gives the pulse of an entire environment, explains Louis Patrick Leroux. “If Cirque du Soleil is doing well, everything else in the industry is doing well. » And vice versa. “We are perhaps seeing a little loss of steam, or a shift of creative and decision-making forces elsewhere,” notably in London, where several of the new leaders are based. “We can see the impact on the environment currently. HAS”
In his opinion, the circus community is currently experiencing a transition from adolescence to adulthood. “The risk tolerance that we saw during Guy Laliberté’s time was very high. It was not reasonable, but he did something extraordinary,” he recalls. Today, we are entering a “period of maturity” where we observe a form of “creative stagnation”.
A state in which the Cirque will have to avoid getting bogged down, warns François Colbert. “The show-businessit’s risky,” he sums up. You never know if a new show is going to work. But it is precisely the ability to renew oneself that allows one to survive in this cut-throat market.
In this regard, the expert is not worried about the future of Cirque du Soleil. “It’s a company that seems financially healthy and has a good product and a good creative team. It’s difficult to predict the future, but I think they are in good shape. HAS”
