CENTRAL ISLIP, NY (BRAIN)—A federal judge on Wednesday slightly modified the bid procedures for the upcoming auction of bankrupt Iron Horse Bicycle Company.
In a short 15-minute telephone hearing, Judge Alan S. Trust approved a request from General Capital Partners—the facilitator of the auction proceedings—relieving GCP from a previous requirement to publish notice of the bid deadline and auction date on nine industry Web sites.
An order signed June 22 by Judge Trust required GCP to pay for advertisements on www.bicycleretailer.com; www.sportsonesource.com; www.bikebiz.com; www.bike-eu.com; www.wheelgiant.com.tw; www.tbea.org; www.bikeoz.com.au; www.bicycleindustrynews.com.au; and www.btac.org.
But, Nicholas Kajon, an attorney for GCP said in a June 24 letter submitted to the court that his client believed the adverstiing would cost $7,000 and wouldn’t be effective.
“GCP’s experience has been that web-based advertising is cost-inefficient and less effective than traditional marketing efforts,” Kajon wrote.
Also, GCP had found that many of the required Web sites weren’t able to publish notice of the auction proceedings, Kajon said.
Instead, he suggested that GCP issue a press release announcing the sale to seven of the nine Web sites (excluding two non-English sites) and pay for an ad publishing the sale details only on www.bicycleretailer.com for a period of 14 days.
The judge approved the request after all parties in the case agreed to those terms.
The assets of Iron Horse, which went into bankruptcy in March, are scheduled to be auctioned on July 13. All bids are due July 9. So far, Pacific Cycle and Outdoor Cycle Group have both submitted bids for Iron Horse.
