To all, looks like they are going to liquidate everything I guess. This is from August 22,2 days before the first sale of shares. Boy do I hate lawyers and liquidators,except for family members(sorry if anyone is one).
Benton's Rockies stake up for sale
Uranium trader's final assets, including ball team, to be sold
By Al Lewis
Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oren Benton's 23 percent stake in the Colorado Rockies is up for sale,
marking the end of the most spectacular personal bankruptcy case ever
filed in Colorado.
Creditors have been grappling in court since February 1995, when Benton
first filed his $800 million bankruptcy.
The baseball team will be among the last of the bankrupt uranium
trader's major assets to be sold.
But it's unlikely new owners will come into the team.
Benton's general partners in the team, Jerry McMorris, owner of
NationsWay Transport Service Inc., and Charlie Monfort, president of
ConAgra Refrigerated Foods International -- have first right of refusal
on Benton's general partnership shares in the team. And the team's
limited partnership owners -- including the Rocky Mountain News -- have
first right of refusal on Benton's limited partner shares.
"I have had discussions with the creditors committee about Charlie
Monfort and I purchasing Benton's stock,'' McMorris said Thursday. "I
have said all along it would be handled by the general partners.''
Carl Eklund, a Denver attorney representing creditors in the Denver
case, said creditors have been in discussions with several potential
buyers for the Rockies, including local investors.
He said creditors also will sell Benton's real estate holdings, his 40
percent stake in Rio Narcea Gold Mines Ltd. in Spain, and his 40 percent
stake in a Colorado Springs-based computer chip company, Ramtron
International Corp.
"Ramtron, Rio Narcea and the Rockies are the three major assets we have
yet to dispose of,'' Eklund said. "We hope to liquidate these in the
next six to nine months.''
The bankruptcy settlement has left Benton, who once controlled a
billion-dollar uranium empire, with relatively little.
He retains an option to buy back his lower downtown Denver loft, but
must make the purchase within 60 days, at market value, which is
estimated to be about $1 million. He also retains an option to purchase
about 45 percent of his Grand County ranch for $2 million within two
years.
Benton did not return telephone messages left Thursday at his Denver
office.
In January, he made a $110 million offer to purchase several key assets
from his bankruptcy estate, including his stake in the Rockies, the
ranch, the LoDo loft and other key properties. The offer, said to be
backed by a New York financier, was snubbed by creditors and ultimately
withdrawn.
In the final analysis, Benton's bankruptcy filing totaled $800 million,
and his creditors have agreed to settle with his bankruptcy estate for
$450 million, Eklund said.
Benton's stakes in Rio Narcea and Ramtron combined are worth more than
$200 million at their current stock prices.
Meanwhile, creditors -- mostly uranium suppliers and utility companies
around the globe -- have already liquidated most of Benton's assets for
$250 million.
Most of those assets were uranium stockpiles and contracts and assorted
businesses such as Denver-based Professional Bank, which sold for $13.5
million earlier this month.
Roughly 95 percent of Benton's individual creditors have already settled
with the bankruptcy estate, most receiving 50 to 55 cents on the dollar,
Eklund said.
Friday, August 22, 1997
Don't they have to file for a liquidation? I have not seen a SEC document to that effect.
Hiram |
