Situation
With the emergence of Amazon, this Christian book wholesaler found a lot of its customers, independent Christian bookstores, going out of business. The debt holder wanted GGG to go in as the Receiver, in the hope that it would get 50% of its money back. Also, there were some personal guarantees on equipment purchases that needed to be addressed on behalf of the business owners.
Action
As the receiver, GGG took the following steps:
- Developed a plan for the liquidation of the inventory including when and how to implement discounts and negotiate bulk sales with other wholesalers.
- Designed and implemented a staff reduction and retention strategy to ensure costs were minimized while operations continued without interruption.
- Interviewed several and engaged an auction company to handle the liquidation of the company’s fixed assets.
- Negotiated successful buyouts of personal guarantee contracts, real estate lease, and UCC claims.
Results
After 10 weeks on the engagement, Send the Light was able to pay back the debt holder 100% of its obligation. In addition, all unsecured creditors received over 20 cents on the dollar. All personal guarantees were released and the lease was bought out far below where the quasi-creditors committee thought it would be. Also, the fixed asset auction brought in double the initial expectation.