Innovative Objects, LLC, 2540 South Range Line Road, filed for Chapter 11 bankrupcy Thursday in U. S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Missouri.
The software company has more than $10 million in debts, according to the petition, with assets estimated at between $500,000 and $1 million.
17 comments:
How does a "software company" get that deep in the hole?
I would guess from a lack of focus and smarts, their on-line presence is one of the most minimal I've ever seen, and I have no idea what they actually do, except own some other companies.
And the latter is probably a key, I suspect some of those they bought didn't work out, technology acquisitions almost never work.
The building they built and the addition of all the new employees is what did them in. Being in business is a marathon not a sprint. Sad, but a nice building will be up for sale im sure soon.
The building they built
Ah, the so called Edifice Complex, in the private sector it's usually a sign that a company has lost its focus on what counts, and is headed for hard times or worse. It's well known in the software sector in formerly big names like Borland, interesting to see it applies for small fry like this company.
The extra employees ought not cause it problems as long as they were doing something useful, something that would bring in money in a short enough time frame. That is, we can't assume this wasn't in part just a cash flow problem, and they are filing for Chapter 11 reorganization instead of Chapter 7 liquidation, but, again, my question is, just what is or was this company doing or trying to do?
There is way more behind this than many know. Just look up case net 1531-CC01269. I am very much surprised that the local media has not caught wind of this.
They sure talked a big game and bought a lot of companies. My guess is that there is more to this story...
I shouldn't have to work this hard to find out what a company does or makes. The company's website says, " Innovative Objects and its subsidiary companies strive to achieve customer satisfaction by ensuring quality management principles are used effectively throughout all processes and that the staff is consistently trained on the latest in technology and services. Regular reviews of processes and management are conducted to remain focused on being the best in our industry."
Good point, 7:28, about the building. Spending money it probably didn't have.
11:13, I looked up the case but didn't find what it was about. It appears the Miami Nation owns Innovative Objects, but is also suing Innovative Objects. What's the story?
As for being surprised the local media has not caught wind of this, you have more confidence in the local media than I do. Aside from Jordan Aubey at KOAM, I don't know of a reporter around here who digs for a story.
" Innovative Objects and its subsidiary companies strive to achieve customer satisfaction by ensuring quality management principles are used effectively throughout all processes and that the staff is consistently trained on the latest in technology and services. Regular reviews of processes and management are conducted to remain focused on being the best in our industry."
SHAZAM!!!
With a stuff like this on their website business and profits should be rolling in!
Steve Holmes said: 11:13, I looked up the case but didn't find what it was about. It appears the Miami Nation owns Innovative Objects, but is also suing Innovative Objects. What's the story?
Innovative Objects and one or more of its subsidiaries switched from being defendants to plaintiffs on 11/19/2015, look at the Party Information page. So I assume at that time Innovative Objects either came to an accommodation with Miami Nation, or was bought by them.
All that we can really tell is that something very messy was going on, note the order for the parties to not directly communicate or face sanctions, the lawsuit case type is "CC Breach of Contract" and involves "rent and possession", Innovative Objects took the step of declaring Chapter 11, it wasn't directly forced by its creditors, and there was a separate case 1531-CC01475, with a case type "CC Promissory Note", that was filed on 12/8/15, with only the parties of Miami Nation vs. Grundy and company, that was then consolidated into this case.
Suing over a promissory note pretty much has to be over non-payment of it, right?
Anyway, I can't figure out what was happening from the bare bones available on the Missouri Case Net site, but if Miami Nation had a case, perhaps Innovative Objects was in part forced to file Chapter 11 because monies legitimately promised weren't delivered. And something like this can consume the attention of the leadership of a company, that alone can cause it to fail.
From a quick google search on Miami Nation showed that the tribe was part of the biggest payday loan schemes in the United States. This is the same tribe that owns Innovative...per the case net...it appears they also own PILR and Blu20...who still appear to be operational.
Why have the court in Green County vs Jasper County I wonder...maybe they are trying to stay out of the news here locally so that PILR and Blu20 names can go untarnished? This whole thing is fishy. THIS NEEDS TO BE NEWS NOW!!!!!
5:29 AM: We can only infer ownership from the Case Net entries, it's likely but not certain.
As for why Green County? Miami Nations is in Oklahoma, they filed the lawsuits so they get to choose the initial venue, they chose not to make them a federal case, and their lawyers are in Springfield, as are Grundys'. Nothing sinister if both sides decided to retain lawyers in a city not all that far away from both.
Parties have a right to choose a "forum" for litigation. This means in the contract it states where all lawsuits will be filed. In this matter, there was a forum selection clause that stated Greene County would be used. The basis of the case is that MNE was told that IO had contracts that it did not have. That information was used to inflate the value to get MNE to purchase IO and pay far greater than the value. Now RLG is suing IO for failing to pay rent on the building. Many counterclaims, etc. but that is the short version of where and why.
8:17 AM: My questions about your account are why were RLG et. al. included in the initial lawsuit (served along with IO et. al. on 10/16/15), and why did IO et. al. change from being defendants to plaintiffs on 11/19/15? For that matter, was MLE forbidden to communicate with IO et. al. except through counsel?
Not counting a domestic dissolution case, I only see RLG et. al. getting sued, although of course there's a counter-claim filed early this year, and it's against IO and MNE with others added as I read the docket, and RLG claimed they aren't counter-suing MNE for monetary damages....
And there's as of a few weeks ago a 16AO-CC00197, UMB Bank is suing RLG et. al. for breach of contract; of course, that could be because IO didn't pay the rent.
A colossal mess, especially since filing for Chapter 11 at least temporarily freezes any lawsuits against IO.
Anonymous 8:17- I get what you are saying but what I do not get is before the acquisition by the tribe, those contract values had to be put on the books. How can that happen when they had an accounting team with a CFO? Was the CFO incompetent to look into the contracts and verify them or did that person just put things on the books because he/she was told to do so? Seems odd or that person(s) is totally incompetent. Then when the acquisition was made by the tribe, how in the world did they not check the contracts? Did they just trust the books at face value? It appears that the contracts might be multi million in worth, wouldn't you think that those contracts would be verified? Either way, I believe it shows complete carelessness on the tribe for mishandling their tribal funds.
Seems to me that the head accountants and the tribe cannot follow simple business processes when buying and managing a business and to think they are still in charge of the remaining businesses (PIL/Blu20), I would have a really hard time trusting them that they will do things correctly.
If Grundy's alleged accusations prove to be true, than I would not want to do business with them either. However by Innovative filing for Ch. 11 proves that they were losing the case and it was the only way out to save what skin they have left in the game...which is probably not much after this.
You can't mark to market software development contracts so they would not "be on the book".
However by Innovative filing for Ch. 11 proves that they were losing the case and it was the only way out to save what skin they have left in the game...which is probably not much after this.
Innovative could claim that the messy lawsuit caused them to lose the Wal-Mart contract, but, yeah, a "software company" filing for Chapter 11 with such huge debts, plus their minimal and meaningless "buzzword bingo" on-line presence, strongly suggests they're at minimum a failure, and we're allowed to strongly suspect they're in the wrong.
Or were before MNE bought them, that makes the whole mess even more complicated, for this is among other things a way to postpone RLG et. al.'s attempt to collect rent and gain back possession of the office space they're in.
As for the CFO etc.'s diligence or rather, lack thereof, you're spot on, as I mentioned in another Turner Report topic on this.
Did I hear that Andrew Jordan got promoted to President of PILR Tech now that Innovative Objects is closed, Is that correct, who does this? I guess they needed a way to run another business into the ground and who better than the person who ran the first one into the ground. Something fishy about trying to split off companies while going bankrupt, isn't there a term for that, transferring assets from one company to another while going bankrupt?
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