An acquaintance of mine who owns an EBR received documents on the sale last week. He says there are 8 separate lots, but apparently the receiver can award any combination or all of the lots to a single bidder, in whatever combination is most advantageous for the seller. So the highest bid on a single lot doesn't necessarily mean the buyer will get that lot. It'll be very interesting to see how it turns out.
Why doesn't Erik Buell have some kind of cause of action against Hero? Didn't they with hold funding in an attempt to force Erik to sell EBR to them?
I would have to imagine that's true as a matter of practicality. If someone is willing to take over the whole thing and honor warranties, that's more advantageous to the creditors than different groups paying more for individual elements to take them in different directions and abandon existing owners and dealers.Originally Posted by Hughlysses
That's why if I were the receiver and judge, I'd want to start with viable entities that were willing to take the whole thing, honor all debts, and continue the business, and individual components would only be available if no viable entities were willing to take it all.
But I don't know how the receiver or judge's hands are tied by legal restrictions.
It's hard to know how much of that is real and what is internet rumor. If Hero didn't honor obligations, the new entity (and current receiver) should have legal standing to attempt to collect those debts.
And if there is truth to those rumors, I would hope that would limit their legal standing and ability to bid on EBR.
It would certainly seem unjust and a disservice to creditors if Hero caused the default based on their refusal to pay (when they had the ability) and then were able to buy the company for a song.
I would hope the law has some ability to prevent that, but I'm just a lay-person observing it all, and I don't know either the law or the details of what actually happened beyond a very superficial level.
Just over 2 weeks now. I'm just hoping that whatever happens works well for owners, dealers, suppliers, employees and the future of American Sport-bikes.
Last edited by Scott; 07-05-2015 at 07:33 AM.
My biggest fear is that this is all sold for scrap and goes away.
My second biggest fear is that Hero will be able to snatch up the technology, throw away everything else, and two years from now we'll be seeing Indian-made 1190RX and SX's being imported to the US.
I'm reasonably optimistic that the outcome will be better than either of those two scenarios, but I'm not confident enough that I won't be nervous until we know more.
One question I'm really curious about is: "How are future EBR projects tied to Hero?"
So for example, if EBR has a great middle-weight based on the Hastur and that bike requires the (Hero owned) Hastur engine, what happens after the ugly break-up? They may have to start over and buy a new engine from a new supplier.
So hopefully any future models were based on engines EBR actually owns. Since they now own and are making the 1190, hopefully they had the foresight and ability to make sure future engines were EBR and not tied up with Hero.
^ I'd say if the detailed designs for the Hastur are among the (alleged) projects that EBR had under development for Hero but which they for which they were not paid, they're included in the items to be auctioned and the new owner could bring them to production.
Here's another short blurb in the moto-press about the sale:
http://www.autoblog.com/2015/07/05/e...ssets-auction/
There are very few things we can say with certainty regarding all this, but here's one thing that I think I can say with some certainty: It's going to be a looooong two and a half weeks.
https://www.facebook.com/ErikBuellRacing?fref=nf
See it weird stuff like this that makes things complicated. EBR is closed but whomever used to be their official Facebook persona either never got the memo or is in the know about something. I truly hope there is reason for optimism because the ride in the morning was a BLAST!!!
Yea, EBR's Facebook guy sure seems VERY hopeful. Let's hope his hope is justified.
Meanwhile, I was trying to see if I could find anything on line indicating restrictions on who can bid in a Chapter 128 filing, and I ran across this document:
http://www.cfa-llc.com/downloads/Cha...visors_LLC.pdf
It's a basically an advertisement for a guy who serves as a receiver, but it gives details of the steps involved in a Chapter 128 filing and gives one example of a company that went through the process and was kept open. The original employees were even guaranteed jobs for at least one year.
Last edited by Hughlysses; 07-07-2015 at 12:13 PM.
Another article about the sale at Autoevolution: bring back the Uly! (MKII)
http://www.autoevolution.com/news/eb...ike-97578.html
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