Tumwater Brewery Sold

According to the Tacoma News Tribune, an ownership group has purchased the "200,000-square-foot brick (Tumwater) brewhouse, 32 acres of property that surrounds the building and two parking lots".  George Heidgerken and Patrick Rhodes spent $1.4 million in cash on the purchase.  It's important to note that we believe this isn't the entire Tumwater property.  We think there's more to sell.  Mackinac Partners' promise to maximize the value of this asset can't be fully blamed on them given the fact that the water rights were sold out from under the property by Barney. Gut wrenching as it might be, if you check your loan summary list on the Bar-K website, you'll be troubled to find that the original appraisal for the property was $57 million and the loan amount was $26 million.

Jim Weissenborn's September 9, 2010 Newsletter

We will spend time breaking down the newsletter in the near future.  In the meantime, here are our initial thoughts:

1. The money is gone.  If you can't figure this out after reading the newsletter, we feel sorry for you.
2. On page 3, the nifty pie chart shows 0% of the loans Walter, Barney, Bruce and Kelly made are performing.  Note that everyone's favorite, Walter, is included in this list.  Conventional wisdom these days is to point the finger at Barney, but it's not too difficult to understand that sweet Walter may have unclean hands.
3. Speaking of Barney, Capital Salvage is a far bigger player in this whole mess than I anticipated. 
4. Speaking of Bruce, it's sad that such a well-respected member of the community found it so easy to mislead us.  These investments were safe according to Bruce.  They'd never lost a penny according to Bruce. Don't worry, said Bruce.  NONE of the loans were safe.  Not a single one.  The exchange agreement is no big deal, said Bruce.  Nothing will change if you sign the exchange agreement, said Bruce.  The exchange agreement subordinated every single investor to WFF.  Forever. 
5. WFF drew down all but half a million dollars of REL's cash reserves.  Question - how much was in the account before WFF drew it down?
6. Weissenborn wants to take out a smaller loan to cover taxes and carrying costs in the amount of TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS!   Weissenborn is simply digging a deeper hole for us.  Question - Will the noteholders be subordinated even further down the list?  Likely pecking order if/when the new loan is secured:  1)  WFF 2) Company loaning $20 million 3) noteholders. 
7. The Ad-Hoc Creditor's Committee isn't supposed to communicate with the other noteholders, but they are supposed to help Weissenborn gain a better understanding of "investor concerns."  How can the committee understand what we're going through if they're not allowed to converse with the rank-and-file?  The hand-picked committee is a sham.
8. Pearl Tom is a member of the Creditor's Committee.  Why does her name keep popping up everywhere?  Ms. Tom's name appears on all the Siena/Wild Game Ng/High Five/Five-Way/One South Lake bankruptcy filings.  Somehow she's figured out how to receive notice on all the BK filings.  Just who is Pearl Tom?  We'll delve into that at a later time, but it's becoming abundantly clear she's in cahoots with sweet Walter.

More later....

An open letter to our savior

On July 15th, James Weissenborn ("Jimmy"), the Chief Restructuring Officer of RE Loans and the Managing Partner of Mackinac Partners wrote a letter to RE Loans noteholders.  If you haven't seen the letter, check out the RE Loans website (recent news section) and look under Mackinac Correspondence.  Click on the link for "Message from Chief Restructuring Officer (CRO)".   Now, onto the response...