The primary assets of Express Grain Terminals LLC have been sold to UMB Bank, the failed company’s bankruptcy attorney has confirmed.
“We are going about the business now of winding up the sale and transitioning from Express Grain over to UMB,” Craig Geno said Saturday.
The Kansas City, Missouri, bank, which is Express Grain’s largest creditor, was the “highest and best bidder,” he said, for the company’s facilities in Greenwood, Sidon and Minter City, paying $25 million at the auction held by the federal bankruptcy court on Feb. 25.
The winning bid was initially reported on Feb. 26 by The Taxpayers Channel but was not publicly confirmed until later.
Geno said UMB Bank was a credit bidder, which means it was able to purchase Express Grain’s facilities — three storage warehouses and a soybean-processing plant — using its bid amount against the more than $70 million debt that the company owes to the bank. This would reduce the debt to the bank to $45 million.
On the eve of the auction, Express Grain’s offices in Greenwood, the home of its president, John Coleman, and a still-unidentified location were raided by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. Geno said that the raid was disclosed prior to the auction but had no effect on the bidding procedure.
Features of the official sale order are still being finalized, but it was expected to reach federal Bankruptcy Judge Selene Maddox’s desk on Monday or Tuesday, Geno said.
The company’s operations have been winding down significantly, with Geno estimating only 25 to 30 employees remaining. At the time Express Grain and Coleman filed for bankruptcy in late September, the company had about 150 employees.
Remaining inventory of soybeans, soybean meal, soybean oil and corn will be removed over the next week. Any assets in which UMB Bank did not have a security interest will be sold.
Last week, the court approved motions for a small wheel loader to be sold to Roebuck Landing Grain Terminal LLC, a farming company in Akron, Alabama, and an articulated boom lift to Bank of the West. Proceeds from sales of assets will be deposited into segregated accounts.
Geno said Express Grain’s bankruptcy proceedings will continue. He said that the amount owed to farmers who delivered grain to the company but were not paid, originally thought to be $31 million, is an estimated $44 to $46 million and is a “moving target” that continues to be adjusted.
A hearing to determine ownership of grain and grain proceeds is scheduled to begin March 31.
Following that determination, Geno said, the bankruptcy case on his end will be mostly concluded, but he does expect some parties in the case to file appeals of the assets’ sale to UMB Bank. Those could stretch out the process for a year or more, according to Geno.
- Contact Kevin Edwards at 662-581-7233 or kedwards@gwcommonwealth.com.
