November 21, 2013
Good Stuff Cheap
In the bankruptcy world, matching sellers of distressed assets with potential buyers has always caused difficulties - usually resulting in reduced sale prices and relative bargains. For large capital assets - like the Polaroid patent portfolio, or Chrysler, investment bankers satisfy the market gap. Selling smaller assets, like automobiles, time shares or necklaces, presents a more recalcitrant problem. The sellers are fragmented, a broad spectrum of individual chapter 7 trustees, receivers, and other liquidating agents, each with only a small number of items to sell. Further, court rules and procedures governing insolvency processes limited sellers' ability to use many traditional sale mechanisms.
Years ago, the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees developed the bankruptcysales.com website, as a service to chapter 7 bankruptcy trustees to help them locate buyers for various assets. The website contained listings for available assets providing information for buyers to locate items of interest. But, the website was poorly structured and provided limited benefits.
The NABT has now updated the website, renaming it MarketAssetsForSale.com, and expanding its scope, allowing receivers, assignees, banks and others who need to sell distressed assets to list their assets for sale. The website is not an auction mechanism or marketplace, like Bid4Assets, but a resource to help buyers locate assets for sale through insolvency processes. The assets themselves are sold through the traditional sale processes. Chapter 7 trustees and some others can post assets for free, others will have to pay a fee. Sellers and potential buyers do need to set up an account to access the website - buyers have to pay an annual fee of $120.00.
The new site has a much better interface than the old website, with nifty pictures of assets, a cleaner interface, and better tools for searching for assets. Hopefully, with the improved interface more bankruptcy trustees will post assets to the website, and with a broader scope of available assets more buyers will find the website a useful tool for locating the Good Stuff they want Cheap. ¶ 8:44 AM
Years ago, the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees developed the bankruptcysales.com website, as a service to chapter 7 bankruptcy trustees to help them locate buyers for various assets. The website contained listings for available assets providing information for buyers to locate items of interest. But, the website was poorly structured and provided limited benefits.
The NABT has now updated the website, renaming it MarketAssetsForSale.com, and expanding its scope, allowing receivers, assignees, banks and others who need to sell distressed assets to list their assets for sale. The website is not an auction mechanism or marketplace, like Bid4Assets, but a resource to help buyers locate assets for sale through insolvency processes. The assets themselves are sold through the traditional sale processes. Chapter 7 trustees and some others can post assets for free, others will have to pay a fee. Sellers and potential buyers do need to set up an account to access the website - buyers have to pay an annual fee of $120.00.
The new site has a much better interface than the old website, with nifty pictures of assets, a cleaner interface, and better tools for searching for assets. Hopefully, with the improved interface more bankruptcy trustees will post assets to the website, and with a broader scope of available assets more buyers will find the website a useful tool for locating the Good Stuff they want Cheap. ¶ 8:44 AM
