Sale of Polaroid Collection Imminent
John R. Stoebner, Esq.
John R. Stoebner, the court-appointed Chapter 7 Trustee in the PBE Corporation bankruptcy proceeding that involves the Polaroid Collection, announced on January 3, 2010 that he has found buyers for most of the collection. This opens the way for a possible auction for the several remaining components of the Polaroid Collection, with competitive bids due no later than 5 p.m. CST on January 20, 2011 — 10 days hence. That leaves a very brief window of opportunity for any institution or other potential purchaser to submit an offer.
The printed versions of the court notices on this subject that I received on Friday, January 7, dated January 3, 2011, indicate that “Copies of the Sales Motion, the Purchase Agreement, the Sales Procedures, the Auction (defined below) or other matters relating to the proposed sales transaction(s) and other related papers, which interested parties are encouraged to review, are on file with the Court and available on the Court’s website, www.mnb.uscourts.gov, or by request to the undersigned Trustee or his legal counsel.”
However, I have searched the website of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Minnesota every way I can think of, spending several hours at it, yet turning up nothing as of January 10. Which means that trustee Stoebner has now issued two false and misleading statements regarding the online availability of and ready access to these documents promised on paper. It is of course possible that such laxity typifies the Federal legal system in Minnesota, that neither the court nor its delegated officers were required to post these documents promptly, and that a court-appointed figure like Stoebner out there in the midwest has no actual obligation to verify that such an assertion is in fact true.
So, in case there’s an institution interested in making a competing bid, here are PDF files of the documents I’ve received — published online for the very first time, so far as I can determine:
Certainly the failure of Judge Kishel and court officers Stoebner and his attorney, George H. Singer, to ensure the prompt posting of these documents and the related forms online, as certified in official court documents, makes it much less likely that anyone will submit a competing bid. Effectively, their inaction has halved the permissible response time whose duration they themselves dictated. In point of fact, this blog post represents the first web announcement of these court decisions, the pending sale/auction, and the imminent deadline. That leaves any interested party just a few days to get in a competing bid.
Given the exemplary behavior to date of this collaborative trio of Twin Cities legal eagles, it would require an untoward level of suspiciousness to ascribe any motive to this substantive oversight — such as, just to get fanciful for a moment, a wish to hustle this through as an uncontested slam-dunk in order to clear the docket. Still, it seems more than just another “Oops!” moment in the MN courts.
George H. Singer, Esq.
Be that as it may, having sworn in court documents that electronic versions of all this paper, plus the bidding forms and supplementary documents, have been available on the internet for the past week, Stoebner and Singer have an unquestionable legal obligation to make amends by providing all of those digital files expeditiously (meaning within hours, if not minutes, of any demand for them). Any interested party can legally request them, plus additional information about the sales, from:
George H. Singer, Lindquist and Vennum, PLLP, 80 South 8th St., Ste. 4200, Minneapolis, MN 55402; T (617) 371-2493/371-3207; email gsinger (at) lindquist (dot) com.
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As you’ll find if you peruse these documents, the prospective purchaser of the bulk of what remains is a mysterious entity called Perle Holdings Inc. — not, as anticipated and hoped for, a museum or institution. This corporation has no web presence; indeed, several searches turned up absolutely nothing on this legal entity. Certainly it has no visibility or reputation in the fields of art and photography. (I’ve heard a rumor that they plan to create a showcase for selections from the collection somewhere in lower Manhattan.)
The name Aubry Perle Holdings does show up in late-20th-century news stories and stock-fraud cases — see, for example, Jonathan Gaw’s report, “U.S. Judge Fines Ex-Waldron Chief in Stock Scheme,” Los Angeles Times, May 14, 1999. According to Gaw, “a federal judge . . . imposed $110,000 in civil penalties against Cery B. Perle, part owner and former president of the now-defunct Irvine [NYSE] brokerage Waldron & Co., for his role in manipulating the stock of Corona del Mar online retailer Shopping.com. U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian this week ruled that Perle, who held a one-third interest in Waldron and controlled its operations, inflated Shopping.com’s stock through illegal practices that brought in profits of $4.1 million for the brokerage.”
As a result, the California-based NYSE brokerage firm Waldron & Co., accused of inflating the shares of then-troubled online retailer Shopping.com, lost its regulatory registration and closed its doors. Perle was also barred for life by the Securities and Exchange Commission from association with any broker or dealer. According to the SEC, “Perle was also a one-third owner of Aubry/Perle Holdings, the holding company which owned Waldron.” For the SEC ruling on the matter, click here.
This same Cery B. Perle, 48 years old, now operates as CEO/Chairman of the Board/President/Director/Principal Financial and Accounting Officer of a software outfit called Spare Backup, Inc., where he pulls down a whopping $832k per year. The profile of Perle provided by Spare Backup, Inc. to Forbes reads as follows:
Mr. Perle has served as our President, CEO and Chairman since February 2004. Mr. Perle co-founded Grass Roots in June of 2002. Mr. Perle has experience in numerous start-up ventures. A primary focus of Mr. Perle’s experience has been on the sales and marketing of innovative ideas and products. Prior to Grass Roots, from 2001 to 2002, he was director of Crystal Consulting Group, a business-consulting firm. From 2000 to 2001, he was engaged as a consultant to Rxalternative.com, an alternative healthcare web site. From 1994 to 1998, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of Waldron & Co., a California-based registered broker-dealer, where he established four branch offices in addition to the West Coast based corporate office of the investment firm. (Italics mine.)
Intriguing that they cite his activities at Waldron without noting that under his “innovative” leadership Waldron lost its regulatory registration and went belly-up, and Perle himself was permanently enjoined by the SEC from association with any broker or dealer. (Here’s an even longer and more glowing bio sketch of Perle, most likely self-authored, from Kolabora.com.) Would you entrust the backing up of your valuable data to software sold by this man? Quite sure it doesn’t include a Trojan horse, are you?
According to CorporationWiki.com, “Incorporated by Jon G Aubry, Aubry Perle Holdings, Inc. is located at 3901 W Pioneer Pkwy Arlington, TX 76013. Aubry Perle Holdings, Inc. was incorporated on Thursday, August 17, 1995 in the State of CA and is currently active. The Prentice-Hall Corporation Inc represents Aubry Perle Holdings, Inc. as their registered agent.” What role Perle continues to play in this operation, if any, I cannot say. Aubry Perle Holdings apparently has no website either.
Of course, there may be no relationship, legal or otherwise, between Aubry/Perle Holdings and Perle Holdings. The name Perle isn’t an uncommon one, after all. However, if Perle Holdings is Cery B. Perle’s project, I certainly hope that trustee Stoebner, his attack poodle George H. Singer, and Minnesota Bankruptcy Court Judge Gregory F. Kishel don’t seriously intend turning this collection over to such a man. That would constitute not only a scandal on a major scale, but also a remarkable display by these three officers of the court of what constitutes Federal-level due diligence in the great state of Minnesota. Not to mention the unbearable irony of handing over a unique, irreplaceable collection, brought to this crisis by convicted and disgraced Ponzi schemer Tom Petters, to a convicted and disgraced stock manipulator — in a fire-sale proceeding.
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Be that as it may, Perle Holdings has offered a bid of $1,275,000.00 USD for what the Minnesota court calls the “Polaroid Fine Art Collection” — or, alternatively, and inexplicably, the “Artex Collection.” These are all the works in the U.S. currently stored in Somerville, MA. These pictures, plus some unspecified physical and legal assets, get cumulatively named the “Acquired Assets.” The Trustee is open to higher bids. If I read the documents aright, minimum competitive bid on this would be that price plus $60,000.00 USD.
Additionally, there are some works still at Sotheby’s, including the ones not sold, the ones withdrawn from the auction as a result of the campaign to stop the auction, and others. These are known in this sale or auction as the “Sotheby’s Assets.” Minimum price for these, the court indicates, would be $556.750.00 USD. No suggestion that this price is negotiable, though no bids on this lot are specified so far. No information on how they arrived at that figure, nor any inventory given of how many pieces this includes and who made them. However, since these represent items cherry-picked by Sotheby’s but not sold for one reason or another, they do represent what a prominent auction house considered auctionable, and thus a knowledgeable culling of some of the best works from the collection.
Both of these lots get summarized in the Notice of Sale and Sale Procedures for the “Acquired Assets” and the “Sotheby’s Assets.”
Separately, there are the works at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne. These are known as the “Swiss Photographs.” They have a bidder for those, in the amount of $755,000.00 USD, so a competitive bid for that batch would have to go “higher and better,” the amount and terms not specified. The current bidder is WestLicht-Peter Coeln GmbH, which could get outbid. However, most people, myself included, feel that those prints should stay at the Musée, and I’ve heard an unconfirmed rumor that this bidder acts on behalf of a third party who intends to leave them in their long-time Lausanne home via donation. This lot get summarized in the Notice of Sale and Sale Procedures for the “Swiss Photographs.”
The Order Approving Auction and Sale Procedures spells out the protocols and how-to for bidders in more detail.
So we’ve started to approach the conclusion of this drama. The next ten days will show us the dénouement. Last chance for an institution capable of maintaining them as a research and exhibition resource to acquire the “Polaroid Fine Art Collection” and/or the “Sotheby’s Assets.” Give George Singer a call.
(To be continued.)
This post supported by a donation from photographer and writer Mary Ann Lynch.
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For an index of links to all previous posts related to this story, click here.
SPJ Research Award 2014
Polaroid Collection: Urgent Institutional Alert 1
Sale of Polaroid Collection Imminent
John R. Stoebner, Esq.
John R. Stoebner, the court-appointed Chapter 7 Trustee in the PBE Corporation bankruptcy proceeding that involves the Polaroid Collection, announced on January 3, 2010 that he has found buyers for most of the collection. This opens the way for a possible auction for the several remaining components of the Polaroid Collection, with competitive bids due no later than 5 p.m. CST on January 20, 2011 — 10 days hence. That leaves a very brief window of opportunity for any institution or other potential purchaser to submit an offer.
The printed versions of the court notices on this subject that I received on Friday, January 7, dated January 3, 2011, indicate that “Copies of the Sales Motion, the Purchase Agreement, the Sales Procedures, the Auction (defined below) or other matters relating to the proposed sales transaction(s) and other related papers, which interested parties are encouraged to review, are on file with the Court and available on the Court’s website, www.mnb.uscourts.gov, or by request to the undersigned Trustee or his legal counsel.”
So, in case there’s an institution interested in making a competing bid, here are PDF files of the documents I’ve received — published online for the very first time, so far as I can determine:
Certainly the failure of Judge Kishel and court officers Stoebner and his attorney, George H. Singer, to ensure the prompt posting of these documents and the related forms online, as certified in official court documents, makes it much less likely that anyone will submit a competing bid. Effectively, their inaction has halved the permissible response time whose duration they themselves dictated. In point of fact, this blog post represents the first web announcement of these court decisions, the pending sale/auction, and the imminent deadline. That leaves any interested party just a few days to get in a competing bid.
Given the exemplary behavior to date of this collaborative trio of Twin Cities legal eagles, it would require an untoward level of suspiciousness to ascribe any motive to this substantive oversight — such as, just to get fanciful for a moment, a wish to hustle this through as an uncontested slam-dunk in order to clear the docket. Still, it seems more than just another “Oops!” moment in the MN courts.
George H. Singer, Esq.
Be that as it may, having sworn in court documents that electronic versions of all this paper, plus the bidding forms and supplementary documents, have been available on the internet for the past week, Stoebner and Singer have an unquestionable legal obligation to make amends by providing all of those digital files expeditiously (meaning within hours, if not minutes, of any demand for them). Any interested party can legally request them, plus additional information about the sales, from:
George H. Singer, Lindquist and Vennum, PLLP, 80 South 8th St., Ste. 4200, Minneapolis, MN 55402; T (617) 371-2493/371-3207; email gsinger (at) lindquist (dot) com.
•
As you’ll find if you peruse these documents, the prospective purchaser of the bulk of what remains is a mysterious entity called Perle Holdings Inc. — not, as anticipated and hoped for, a museum or institution. This corporation has no web presence; indeed, several searches turned up absolutely nothing on this legal entity. Certainly it has no visibility or reputation in the fields of art and photography. (I’ve heard a rumor that they plan to create a showcase for selections from the collection somewhere in lower Manhattan.)
Mr. Perle has served as our President, CEO and Chairman since February 2004. Mr. Perle co-founded Grass Roots in June of 2002. Mr. Perle has experience in numerous start-up ventures. A primary focus of Mr. Perle’s experience has been on the sales and marketing of innovative ideas and products. Prior to Grass Roots, from 2001 to 2002, he was director of Crystal Consulting Group, a business-consulting firm. From 2000 to 2001, he was engaged as a consultant to Rxalternative.com, an alternative healthcare web site. From 1994 to 1998, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of Waldron & Co., a California-based registered broker-dealer, where he established four branch offices in addition to the West Coast based corporate office of the investment firm. (Italics mine.)
Intriguing that they cite his activities at Waldron without noting that under his “innovative” leadership Waldron lost its regulatory registration and went belly-up, and Perle himself was permanently enjoined by the SEC from association with any broker or dealer. (Here’s an even longer and more glowing bio sketch of Perle, most likely self-authored, from Kolabora.com.) Would you entrust the backing up of your valuable data to software sold by this man? Quite sure it doesn’t include a Trojan horse, are you?
According to CorporationWiki.com, “Incorporated by Jon G Aubry, Aubry Perle Holdings, Inc. is located at 3901 W Pioneer Pkwy Arlington, TX 76013. Aubry Perle Holdings, Inc. was incorporated on Thursday, August 17, 1995 in the State of CA and is currently active. The Prentice-Hall Corporation Inc represents Aubry Perle Holdings, Inc. as their registered agent.” What role Perle continues to play in this operation, if any, I cannot say. Aubry Perle Holdings apparently has no website either.
Of course, there may be no relationship, legal or otherwise, between Aubry/Perle Holdings and Perle Holdings. The name Perle isn’t an uncommon one, after all. However, if Perle Holdings is Cery B. Perle’s project, I certainly hope that trustee Stoebner, his attack poodle George H. Singer, and Minnesota Bankruptcy Court Judge Gregory F. Kishel don’t seriously intend turning this collection over to such a man. That would constitute not only a scandal on a major scale, but also a remarkable display by these three officers of the court of what constitutes Federal-level due diligence in the great state of Minnesota. Not to mention the unbearable irony of handing over a unique, irreplaceable collection, brought to this crisis by convicted and disgraced Ponzi schemer Tom Petters, to a convicted and disgraced stock manipulator — in a fire-sale proceeding.
•
Be that as it may, Perle Holdings has offered a bid of $1,275,000.00 USD for what the Minnesota court calls the “Polaroid Fine Art Collection” — or, alternatively, and inexplicably, the “Artex Collection.” These are all the works in the U.S. currently stored in Somerville, MA. These pictures, plus some unspecified physical and legal assets, get cumulatively named the “Acquired Assets.” The Trustee is open to higher bids. If I read the documents aright, minimum competitive bid on this would be that price plus $60,000.00 USD.
Both of these lots get summarized in the Notice of Sale and Sale Procedures for the “Acquired Assets” and the “Sotheby’s Assets.”
The Order Approving Auction and Sale Procedures spells out the protocols and how-to for bidders in more detail.
So we’ve started to approach the conclusion of this drama. The next ten days will show us the dénouement. Last chance for an institution capable of maintaining them as a research and exhibition resource to acquire the “Polaroid Fine Art Collection” and/or the “Sotheby’s Assets.” Give George Singer a call.
(To be continued.)
This post supported by a donation from photographer and writer Mary Ann Lynch.
•
For an index of links to all previous posts related to this story, click here.