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Sister Company, LiquiTec® Industries, Conducts Orderly Liquidation of $50,000,000 Inventory 
Sister Company, LiquiTec® Industries, Conducts Orderly Liquidation of $50,000,000 Inventory
LiquiTec® Industries, Incorporated, sister company of AccuVal, was one of four firms that competed to oversee and coordinate the Uniform Commercial Code Article 9 secured party orderly liquidation of collateral of, now defunct, Hoboken Wood Flooring and its subsidiaries (including SPI Floors). Key deciding factors included the experience of the firm, the ability to devote the necessary resources, and the capability to facilitate an orderly liquidation that involved a tough logistical situation.
To understand the full scope of the engagement, it is important to understand the sheer size and footprint of the companies. Until recently, Hoboken Wood Flooring was the top independent hard surface flooring distributor in the country, with more than 600 employees at its peak working out of 20 warehouses located primarily on the east coast, ranging from Maine to Florida. As a distributor, Hoboken offered a variety of brands including Faus, Armstrong, Domco, Azrock, Mirage, BR111, Woods of Distinction, Tiles of Distinction, Designer's Choice carpet, and Studio Ceramics tile.
Once engaged, several steps had to be completed within a short time: evaluate the coverage and logistical footprint of the companies; analyze and execute a consolidation strategy that minimized overhead expenses; retain the necessary company personnel to facilitate the logistics, invoicing, and reconciliation required; safeguard important records; and begin the sales negotiations. Within one week of the engagement, the first negotiated sale was executed; within 30 days, approximately 50% of the overall inventory had been successfully liquidated. Simultaneously, additional consolidations have occurred, further minimizing the footprint and overhead expenses. Agreements were negotiated with landlords, assets were returned to lessors, meetings were conducted with brokers for the disposition of the real estate; and a complete physical inventory of the machinery and equipment was completed at various locations.
Additionally, LiquiTec® was able to utilize their broad expertise and experience in this industry as well as their extensive contacts in the liquidation marketplace to quickly and efficiently begin transforming the assets into cash for the client. A multi-faceted marketing campaign was utilized, incorporating press releases to industry resources; email notification to current and past customers, industry players, and interested parties; and a fax notification for those that did not have email access. By leveraging a strong marketing campaign at the offset of the liquidation, notification of the liquidation was sent to over 56,000 contacts in addition to the readers of the industry publications that included the press release. The orderly liquidation is continuing to proceed at a rapid pace and it is anticipated that the sale will culminate in mid to late January 2008.
Getting the right information to the right people was only the first step; it was critical that anyone interested in the liquidation be able to get current, complete information easily. The development of a custom website directed interested parties to the resources they wanted: complete inventory catalogs, listings of machinery and equipment with photographs; details regarding the real estate for sale; a location matrix that informed bidders where assets were located; and complete terms of sale. (Hoboken website link) Bidders were given the option of completing their offers independently or contacting a liquidation agent for assistance. By providing access to a wide array of asset and sale data, the process of negotiating sales was streamlined – bids were submitted electronically, reviewed, approved, and invoiced generally within 24 to 48 hours.
In addition to a complete suite of disposition services, LiquiTec® also provides asset management, helping clients to identify and execute strategies that will maximize the value of assets from purchase to disposition and all steps in between.