A little-known European company with big ambitions has drawn public outrage in Canada’s largest city.
The company, which runs a spa and water park in Romania, is laying extensive plans to develop similar facilities around the world. Its contract in Toronto has offered a blueprint of sorts — a favorable 95-year lease in which the Ontario government bears the upfront costs of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Auditors last year found the contracting process had been unfair and opaque, just as the European spa company, Therme, was pushing forward its plans for a multibillion-dollar expansion to other major cities in North America, Europe and the Middle East.
But a New York Times investigation showed that, in pitching itself to the world, Therme has misrepresented itself, misleading the Ontario government and exaggerating its experience in its bid to secure the Toronto deal.
The investigation, based on corporate filings in three countries and interviews with a dozen people involved in the company’s operations and the bidding process, found that Therme falsely presented itself as an industry player that operated as many as half a dozen spas in Europe.
In fact, it had built and operated just one, outside Bucharest, Romania. And as it pitched its vision for Toronto, Therme’s finances appeared to be shaky. Auditors found it was losing money and had less than 1 million euro (about $1.1 million) in equity.
The Toronto project gave the company a vital boost and laid the foundation for more growth. Therme secured funding for a similar project in Manchester, England, and made plans for one in Dubai. It is also closing in on a deal to redevelop federal waterfront land in Washington overlooking Nationals Stadium, and is seeking approval from the Dallas City Council for a project there.
Each project costs about half a billion dollars, meaning Therme will need at least $2.5 billion to deliver them. Company executives are unfailingly confident, selling their vision through appearances at events like the World Economic Forum in Davos and the Venice Biennale.
That vision is based on the idea that, around the world, there is a vast, untapped market of people who will pay about $40 to relax, socialize or talk business at a facility that’s part water park and part bath house — with flourishes like swim-up bars, towel-dance performances and film screenings in a sauna.
Companies often use hyperbole to raise private-sector money. But Therme first won a key government contract based on its business portfolio — and then set out to build that portfolio.
Since Therme is pursuing not just investors but also government contracts, it has found itself under closer scrutiny than it would have were it doing strictly private-sector deals.
Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario who won re-election in February, has faced criticism over his administration’s perceived coziness with developers. In recent years the local press reported that he promised an audience of real-estate representatives to rezone a chunk of nature reserve and open it for construction.
In the Therme deal, in which the company is leasing an artificial island in Lake Ontario, Mr. Ford’s government took several unusual steps that reduced oversight. The entire island’s development was exempted from key environmental checks and was classified as a real-estate transaction, allowing the government to avoid more rigorous reviews and standards typical in public contracting.
The province’s bidding process itself was unusual. Participants had to sign nondisclosure agreements. And, according to several bidders, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they had signed those agreements, there was a disclaimer: The government could chose whatever company it wanted, whether or not it had met the bidding requirements — or even submitted a proposal.
Infrastructure Ontario, the government agency that managed the bidding, said in written comments to The Times that the process was designed to be flexible, while still being “infused with some of the best practices from more formal procurements.” The agency refused to answer follow up questions.
Mr. Ford, whose office declined to comment for this article, has championed the Therme project.
“They’re coming here to build a state-of-the-art, one of the most beautiful facilities, as they have right across the world,” he told the news media in 2023. “We’re fortunate to have them pick Toronto.”
‘A Proven Track Record’
Mr. Ford’s comments mirrored what Therme had told his government.
“Therme Group has proven the success of its concept with six globally placed facilities under operation,” the company said in 2019 in its bid for the Toronto island property.
Therme’s apparent global experience boosted its bid. The Ontario government believed that the company had “a proven track record in delivering similar projects,” the team evaluating the bid wrote in its notes at the time.
In 2023 the company doubled down: “Therme Group currently operates four large-scale facilities in Germany and Romania,” it told the Ontario authorities.
In fact, the only spa Therme had ever operated was in Romania, where visitors can enjoy baths, saunas and water slides year-round, under a climate-controlled glass dome. The facility is lush with orchids and palm trees. Therme’s founder, Robert Hanea, says he selected them personally in Florida, Malaysia and Thailand.
So how could this company — headquartered in Austria and running one facility in Romania — persuade the Ontario government that its business portfolio was far larger than it actually was? A hint lies in the company’s insignia, a riff on Botticelli’s Venus.
It bears a striking similarity to the logo of another European spa complex, one built and operated by an entirely different company — with the same name.
Same Name, Same Logo
In an interview with The Times, Mr. Hanea recounted touring the spas and water parks of Europe in the mid-2000s, looking for inspiration for a piece of land he owned near Bucharest that sat on top of geothermal springs.
That brought him to the thermal baths of Erding, Germany, a town northwest of Munich, he said. The owner was a businessman and architect named Josef Wund who had built several spas and communal baths across the country.
Mr. Wund’s company was called Therme.
The two men struck up a friendship, and when Mr. Hanea launched his Bucharest spa in 2016, he called it Therme Bucharest — a kind of homage to his friend’s company. Mr. Hanea’s new venture used a variation of Mr. Wund’s company logo, but the two ventures had no business connection.
While Mr. Hanea said he spoke frequently with his friend, the men most often talked of loftier things than spas, preferring to focus on “the future of humanity, philosophy,” Mr. Hanea said.
In 2017, Mr. Wund was killed when his private plane crashed.
Mr. Hanea did not inherit his friend’s spa company. Instead, he inherited its story.
New Roman Baths
While the German spas continued operating as distinct businesses, they became indistinguishable from Mr. Hanea’s Therme in public discourse and, importantly, in submissions to the Ontario government.
A company representative said Therme’s wording could have been more precise, and that references to its success in Germany were meant to communicate that the concept of Therme had been successful, because of Mr. Wund’s track record in Germany. Mr. Hanea replicated the model, the representative said, and felt he had contributed to it in his conversations with his friend and an agreement between the two companies to share information.
Even before he built the Bucharest spa, Mr. Hanea was considering expanding, he told The Times. He predicted nothing less than that the Therme concept would become “necessary infrastructure for the modern age,” a gathering place akin to the Roman baths, for people of all ages and walks of life.
But his company’s finances were tenuous, Ontario government analysts concluded as they reviewed the bids. “Therme had low liquidity and it was not cash-flow positive,” one Infrastructure Ontario adviser wrote in a 2022 email that was made public as part of the auditor’s report.
The financial condition of the Therme Group, auditors would later conclude, “appeared weak.”
For a company with one location and a delicate balance sheet, Mr. Hanea spent aggressively. He hired the more than 200 engineers, architects and experts who had worked for Mr. Wund. The company engaged in extensive public relations work, sponsoring cultural events and discussions on design and wellness, setting up information booths at major civic fairs.
Such spending was made possible because of another of Mr. Hanea’s friends, Hubert Spegel, a longtime top executive of an Austrian engineering firm that specializes in heating and cooling.
The company, A-HEAT, has been a patient partner, A-HEAT and Therme executives said, having invested, extended loans and bankrolled Mr. Hanea’s business through the pandemic.
That was key to Therme’s pitch in Canada: Whatever its own numbers showed, its backing was solid. Mr. Spegel did not agree to an interview with The Times.
Financial filings in Romania, Germany and Austria show a network of linked Therme corporate entities borrowing money from and doing business with each other. The complexity of that structure makes it hard to draw conclusions about the company’s financial health.
A spokesman for Therme said the structure was a function of the complexity of its business across continents.
Global Expansion
The Toronto deal was a high-profile affirmation for Therme. Announcements about new projects — and outside investment — followed.
The company had also been stepping up its public relations work.
With an eye toward the American market, Mr. Hanea recruited and hired urbanists. One was a co-founder of the High Line Park in New York. Another was a prominent real estate development consultant with expertise in privately financed public parks.
Therme bought multiple art installations from the Serpentine Gallery in London. (A company spokesman said Therme planned to incorporate art into its new facilities.) The company flew community representatives and social-media influencers to Romania to visit Therme Bucharest.
Therme is a major corporate donor to the Kennedy Center in Washington, and Mr. Hanea serves on its corporate board. The mayor’s office there confirmed that Therme has submitted a development proposal for Poplar Point, 110 acres of waterfront along the Anacostia River now managed by the National Park Service.
Therme is also eyeing 22 acres of land near the Trinity River in Dallas for another project, and is seeking formal approval from officials there.
Last December, nearly two decades after Mr. Hanea first visited Mr. Wund’s spa near Munich, his company bought it, drawing on a $335 million a loan that it secured from Sydney-based Macquarie Capital, an investment firm owned by a major Australian bank.
Therme had finally purchased a spa it had claimed to run.
In 2025, Therme announced its first new outside investors. An American real-estate investing firm, Sculptor Capital Management, invested $250 million to start work on the stalled Manchester complex.
A New York real estate firm, The Georgetown Company, bought a 25 percent equity stake this year in Therme’s U.S. business. That deal, Therme said, would help it develop 10 American projects in the coming years.
The company has yet to secure outside investment for its Toronto project. But the Ontario government has been busy clearing land for Therme on West Island. Local residents woke up one morning in October to find that dozens of old trees had been ripped out.
The lease with Ontario requires Therme to start building by spring 2026.
Andrei Petri contributed reporting from Bucharest, Romania, and Ian Austen from Toronto.
