Wednesday, October 5, 2022, 7:21 pm News Flash Archive

Late yesterday, Craig Geno, the attorney for bankrupt Express Grain, filed three requests for court approval to pay an additional total of $332,510 to CR3, a "turn around" firm hired last October to manage the bankrupt Express Grain.

If these new requests are approved by the court, the grand total of payments approved to CR3 would be $1,939,870.25.

Geno's requests include voluminous detailed invoices showing the type of work for which CR3 is requesting payment.

The three requests each cover a specific area of work: work on the sale of EG's assets, work on the 557 Grain procedure, and all other aspects of CR3's services to EG.

These three new requests appear to cover all new work done through the end of July 2022.

CR3 provided a CRO, or Chief Restructuring Officer, named Dennis Gerrard, to direct the bankrupt company. But instead of restructuring, Express Grain was kept in operation for 9 months, as its inventory was processed and sold off, and practically all of its physical assets auctioned off, bringing in only around $85 million. EG owes $218 million to a host of secured and unsecured creditors.

The three new requests for payments to CR3 may be seen here:

Fifth Request for Compensation for CR3

Sixth Request for Compensation for CR3

Seventh Request for Compensation for CR3

Previously, EG had asked for approval to pay CR3 $1.6 million, and the court has already approved those requests.

To see our previous reporting on these large payments to CR3, see here:

May 13, 2022: Legal and professional fees top $980,000 in Express Grain bankruptcy case

May 27, 2022: Legal and professional fees top $2.19 million in Express Grain bankruptcy case

This afternoon, Craig Geno requested that the scheduled hearing on the Disclosure Statement be continued, due to the necessity to file an amended Disclosure Statement. The Disclosure Statement outlines the scheme for liquidating the company and suing for claw backs. The court must approve the Disclosure Statement before the plan can be fully implemented.

The amendment is necessary because the US Trustee and UMB Bank both filed objections to the original Disclosure Statement. To read about the US Trustee's objection to the Disclosure Statement, see here: US Bankruptcy Trustee files objection to Express Grain's liquidation plan disclosure

To read our previous reporting on the claw backs and other aspects of the proposed liquidation plan, see here: Beware the claw backs: Express Grain threatens to sue its own creditors and other companies that did business with it

The hearing date for the amended Disclosure Statement will not be set until the amended statement has been filed with the court.

---

To read all our coverage of the Express Grain bankruptcy case, see here: Index of Express Grain articles

 

John Pittman Hey
The Taxpayers Channel

News Flash Archive