Case Study:

Based on Matrix’s previous successful bankruptcy sale transactions in the petroleum marketing and convenience store industry, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Trustee, Gary V. Skiba, retained Matrix to manage the sale of the assets of RAN Oil Company, LLC.
23 of the Debtor’s 28 stores had been closed prior to filing for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Protection and there were two secured lenders holding the properties as collateral. Some of the stores had been closed for over 12 months prior to Matrix being contacted.
Matrix reviewed financial and property information and visited the locations. We advised the Trustee and the secured lenders of the expected value of the properties if they were to be sold in their current condition and also advised the Estate as to the potential valuation if they were to reopen the stores. Based on the costs of reopening the stores and the time it would take to rebuild the customer base, it was decided to sell the stores in their existing conditions.

To maximize value, Matrix customized an auction process for the sale that invited prospective buyers to submit offers on individual stores or each lender’s entire group of stores.
The process also forced existing dealers to compete against third-parties to purchase the real estate for the store they operated in order to continue to operate their stores.

Over 125 Confidentiality Agreements were submitted by prospective buyers, including regional marketers, local marketers, dealers, restaurant chains, and local real estate developers.
Matrix negotiated a deal with a petroleum marketer and real estate investor located in the Southeast for nine of the properties, which was instrumental in maximizing value to that secured creditor, as many of those properties were not garnering interest from local buyers.
The sale process resulted in the sale of the 28 stores to 11 different buyers and allowed the secured lenders to maximize their recoveries in a short time period with no contractual obligations to the buyers for potential liabilities from known and unknown environmental contamination at the properties.