Tales from the Trenches: A Father-Son Conversation on 40 Years of Restructuring

[MUSIC] Welcome to Turn Around Time, a podcast from the New York City chapter of the Turn Around Management Association. We feature insights and conversations with our diverse and talented members who represent all aspects of corporate renewal. I'm Mark Pagani, Senior Managing Director in the New York Office of Guetz-Lahannarch and Associates, where I lead the real estate and hospitality and education practices. I also serve on the online programming committee for the New York City chapter of the TMA. In this episode, we have a special treat, a conversation that's both business lesson and family legacy. Moe Boardwin, who founded Teen Sumbed Capital Partners in 1982, sits down with his son Harold Boardwin and now leads the firm alongside his brother Matthew as principal and co-president. Moe is a legend in real estate restructuring, who cut his teeth during the turbulent retail landscape of the 1980s and early 1990s. During this era of leveraged buyouts, junk bond financing and spectacular corporate failures, Moe navigated some of the most complex bankruptcy cases of the time. He witnessed firsthand the collapse of iconic retailers like Bonwitt Teller, the legendary Fifth Avenue department store that was demolished to make way for Trump Tower, and worked alongside the hard-driving judges, aggressive predators, and ambitious developers who defined an era. This father's son, Conversation, bridges four decades of restructuring history. From Moe's pioneering work in the 1980s to today's modern practice, and includes the wisdom that gets passed down from one generation of restructuring professionals to the next. You can learn more about our experts at turnaround.org/neariccity. But for now, let's listen to their conversation. Hi, this is Harold Bourdwin from Keene Summit Capital Partners, and I am here with my father, who is a, as far as I'm concerned, he's a legend in the real estate restructuring industry for a brief chat and interview about the good old days and how this business started Moe founded in 1982, and I now run it with my brother as my partner, Matthew. So I think we've got quite a legacy here. And Moe, are you ready? I'm standing tall, but now we're in a suit and I'm ready. Okay, so let's go back, I guess, to the 1970s. You got involved with a bankruptcy back then called Food Fair. Did you have any experience with bankruptcy before? Were you in the real estate business? How did you end up at this spot that got you into Food Fair? Back in the 70s and 80s, I was in the sale of East Bank Real Estate Business, Brokewitz Business, which was wholly owned by Food Fair, AMT, ERRG, Food Fair, owned by Food Fair, owned 50 plus Japanese companies in the Northeast and the. We went into an arrangement to buy eight of the Japanese companies and sell these bags, which was very profitable for them and for us. And in the process of doing this, Food Fair, the parent company went to check the 11 and they said to us, "Since you handled this real estate, you're doing nicely with it." I actually had a look bankruptcy, and I never had a bankruptcy before and I said, "It's a specialty," and we did it. And we created a bankruptcy business. So it went into bankruptcy of who were the attorneys for Food Fair? Love in a long travel in New York. Love in one travel and creams. Michael Princess. Yeah. And the way I've heard you say it in the bankruptcy of the attorneys thought that these leases, Food Fair had grocery store at least, there's hundreds of them. They thought that those leases should be rejected because they were alive at the late. That's great. When we first started then, we looked at some of the leases. The leases that Food Fair entered were leases that were from 50 to 100 years and were all square foot, grow spaces of cents out of square foot and they were very valuable. And we said to them, this has value, what do you mean? We said, we could sell these leases based upon the present value of these leases as they're going right to as much higher than yesterday and it goes out for all these years like grocery spaces. So they said, "Okay, we'll try it, they'll let them." And the first time we had an auction was very successful and they said, "Okay, we know how real estate business, bankruptcy and domestic business." How long did the Food Fair process take? Probably two or three years. I was in court two or three times a week and in court and in chambers was all the issues at that time. What is now we had a case? We sold several hundred properties for them and each time a case came up and there was an argument in court that they couldn't be resolved in court. They just said, "Okay, C&J was a two o'clock and two o'clock came, I would be in there representing the data with a little bit of watch out and the landlord or the prospective bidder would be there. We negotiated resolved the issues of all the issues that we had back and forth over the years. I think maybe one only one case went to trial and many others resolved in court by negotiations and this was true justice. I loved the way it worked out." But interestingly, that negotiation took place with the judge. Judge in chambers, absolutely. And did the judge play an active role? Yes, he kept asking questions and directing where we were going and in case we resolved, I would say, a hundred plus cases in chambers and I had an idea what the case was worth and most of the time the settlements within that range and it's one particular case, the lawyer was not a case but one particular dispute within the food fair manager. That's correct. It was a very high-chat landlord from broken downtown Brooklyn and it was a very tough guy and we're seeing in chambers, "Is there a lever of one job people over there?" And I was there in the judge and I had to make a presentation and each of them see this side and then the landlord's attorney said, "Promy language, I don't give a fuck what's going on. I'm not settling this matter." And he was getting really agitated. The judge stood up and said, "Get your rear end back into the seat. Took out a bottle of scotch and we said if you're not going to scotch you will try to resolve the matter." Which it was resolved. So, I'd say there's some old-- some techniques. This is through justice. Rather than going through trial and court, if you have the court here, we've gone to chambers and may resolve, we would have 95% or 99% of the cases. Yeah. Who are the attorneys at Levin and White Trabble and Crimson? They'd be dealt with. Eli Mann, Ben Wontrow, Marilyn Simon, Myron Trepper, and Randy Boer. Well, Michael Cramps. Michael Cramps? Yeah. This was a full-time job for two or three of the lawyers in the firm all the time. Two or three years, a lot of work worked out very well. And how about for you? How many people were working on this? Selling the property we've probably had 10 or 15 people running around America. Selling what we sold at that time when we had property. I call my ugly yellows. We used to sell flyers. Screaming back up C-Sail in red and in bright yellow pebble with red ink, back up C-listing all the properties for sale and in particular, the Chinese goods properties. I was told by the printing company we were the largest users of yellow paper in America and running all the flyers we sent out. Most are sent out. Hundreds of thousands. Yeah. OVLs, we call them. Yeah, so this was, we're talking about the 1970s. So many of you just saw obviously no email. Obviously, this is before the fax machine. Did not include the telephone. So this is literally stuffing envelopes and how did that process work? When we had an outside mailing service, a young couple of the day, but we got very busy. Everyone in Europe got a few thousand flies. Stuff many envelopes out there. We went every second to call back immediately as to people who were interested. The way the flyers would have the location and the details of the particular lease and the size. And we took it from there and they had all the information. And then they started to make what they reviewed the lease and sent them copies and the things like that. I remember I must have been in high school. You sent me down to Philadelphia because that's what the corporate headquarters was. And you needed information from the actual leases. And the leases weren't literally in a file room. The size of a very large office. And it was all paper and I would get a lease description and the question. And then I'd have to dig through these files and find the lease and find the answer to your question. Sometimes I made a copy of a lease and then mailed it back to New York, but most of the time I made a phone call back. But after the system started, we came to a burdensome. We had food for our main copies, as we had people who requested copies release, we gave them the information they sent out, they had all the machineers, a big company ahead of machine equipment. Did they get that? Yes. Yeah. I recall being put up at what seemed like a very fancy hotel, a warwick hotel, in Philadelphia, and being driven by a black car to food fairs office in the morning and then back to the hotel at night. The judge on that case was who? John Galgate, a wonderful judge. What's about the expenses and the case is not in yet? Sure. You had to do a fee application. A fee application. Was this, did you do multiple or just at the end of the project? No, we got paid on transactions each month. We got a cent a statement and we got paid but yet again, confirmed by the judge and he would be approved. It was fun. It's not. It's what you call it. I feel it back. Yeah. What's the word? Yeah, great. Pulled back to money if it wasn't approved. As a word, I don't know. Right now. So the application for the expenses, expenses in case of $600,000, was about five to ten, which is high with bills and papers shown really money run. And the judge, this was the day when file approval of all the fees in the case. We're going forward and the judge of the action came to the court of reason. My god, there must be fee application. Maybe there's all these blue suits are here today and long behold. Bring up the expenses and the judge asked the debtors council. I don't know if you have the expenses. They said absolutely. Yes, the credits council. Did you review the expenses? Yes, everything approved. We agreed. So I ran in the opens up this big five or six inch portfolio. It was out of billions. I'm just a board and approach the bench. He says, well, what the hell is this? This is about $60 for ball of perfume. I said, you're on a you have in there. Two or three thousand bills. I'm sure you put on a record. It's the only one like that. If you look at the date, this wasn't a good Friday. The offices were closed and we had a transaction to sell. Be some property. It's more several million dollars. And I know where I post phone that closing. But it's the secretary to come in and won't point her present. We'll coming in. He said I heard enough to all approved. Yeah. That's a good story. Boy, there's none of the pockets. When the lawyers. I was on the stand. Testifying us to the value of the services and what they were being paid for his for his firm. Speed application. Long behold, the guy from well, got your name is Michael. No, I mean, a lot of us are hatched. Also question. Michael Crames as to how the extent expenses and why they charge and on and on. It's about a hip out is back and forth. Stuff that you said I heard enough. Mr Crames. No, Mr Miller. Hello. What do you charge? He said you run those fees are not before this court and I don't have to answer. He said I'm the judge. You better answer. Well, the answer to the question basically this fees were exactly so to another white child was approved. We're seeking. And everyone in court was historical record. Just prove that that transaction and the application. It was a fun day. Anything more to say about food fair? Oh, yeah. Well, one of the things is that this concept of selling leases. It was new. It was new. I've never been done before. We had a lease in downtown Philadelphia supermarket. And it was a very good location. I wish you could tell you it's practically having right for that. But I'm not sure. Long behold, actually supermarket switches. And many headquarters there was interested in space. And we had shop right. And brand new also interested in space. A long behold president, Akmy Brody's daughter, who is a student. A graduate student at Columbia University of Masters and Business and Economics. There and you want to show how we how we success on getting the store. Still is we value that $200. And the bidding cards are hot and heavy. And Akmy won the bid for $7 million. That would be convinced that they bought the store because. You know, I want to let the store to see lose a piece of property to the competitors. After the abortion, the real estate director. Akmy came up with his mortgage center of bitch. He used up my entire budget for the year on this one store. So you did a good job. In terms of of lawyers at law firms. Like at the start of this process. The big law firms didn't have bankruptcy prices. At that point, back when she was left to look to power with favor the major law firms in America. And what they did was hire basically living life. I was a referral firm. By after this after this bankruptcy started. I was almost all of the major firms developed bankruptcy departments. Absolutely. Yeah. So let's jump to the bottom with teller. Okay. bankruptcy. Bottom with teller was a high priced eyepiece ladies and parallel business in major locations throughout the United States. The market starts to. Deposit from females. And they only have about eight or nine stores. And long the whole company called pyramid real estate developments. New England. Entered into a contract with the data to buy all the leases. All of one shot. I was retained by the credit is going to prove with the data to get a bit about bid individual. These stores is a package. Well, I thought about that. And it would be very difficult to. To control situation. So call all of these major landlords. One of which was Donald Trump. Who else was there? You remember. I think that was one of them. Love ski Steve Ross. Steve Roth of. We're data. Oh, yeah. It's the nation plays in America. And I sat down in the room. So listen, we have a bid here for extra millions of dollars. And rather pick more for you. And I put it in a joint bid altogether. If you know what would be part of the bid, it's okay. We will replace you. All agreed. I said, okay, we have to have one more represent all eight of you all nine of you. And I said, I select. Warren cop from my friend in the firm. It's green bird. Tarrick. It's very right. And you represent. I can't. I don't know what all of you. I do. Warren cop and he will deal with me. Well, we put together a package after a few days. by all the properties. I think double the price of Pyramid did after the negotiations started. Pyramid realized that they were not going to get the bid, so they'd joined the bidding, and throughout our bid effort they'd stolen in downtown Boston. I think it's unfair to that street. Pyramid was a buyer, what did that store? That was a very interesting combination. Did you go up to Trump's office? Oh yeah, that was. I'm Ban Wittella. Ban Wittella was 157th and 15th next to Tiffany's, and I got a call from someone in Trump's office saying, Mr. Boydwin, "We'd like to know the no Donald Trump." I said, "Yeah, I read about him." And he said, "We'd like to come see him. We'd like to talk to him." I said, "Okay, I'm calling him." So he called me up and he said, "I want my store bag." I just liked him at that point, and I said, "I'm selling the store to a gypsy." He said, "You can't talk to me like that." I said, "Just listen, I hung up on him." Fifty minutes later, I got a lot called from a law firm who I did business with, saying, "What were you doing? He's my client. He's a major client. How could you do a thing like this?" And I said, "Because you can't control the situation. I have a quarter order. I'm a sell-to-ever-much-to-sale-to. He can't stop me." He said, "Why don't you do this? Why don't you go see the guy?" I said, "Sure. So our office is on Fifth Avenue of 58th Street, 59th Street, and you can block the way. He said, "Go see him tomorrow at 12 o'clock." So when I next night I took out the blue suit with the button down, so we took shoes and the junk looked properly, told Trump Tower and they said, "Which is probably the elevator for you." So I get to where I thought it was. I said, "I think I have the elevator. Two guys were up to my face. I said, "Who are you? I said, "Who are you?" I opened the jacket and said, "Carry guns." I said, "Where are you now? What's going on here?" He said, "We asked the questions. I said, "You have the guns? You can ask the question." "Who are you? Who are you? Who are you here to see?" I said, "I'm here to see Donald Trump. I have an appointment. Just a moment. Don't move." I understand this is America. So to my side, I come back and I say, "Okay, he'll see you." I'm walking six times and he said, "My name is Donald. Hello." Before I shake his hand, who these two boons attacking me in the lobby in New York was having a floor. And they said, "Here's the punchline. Women attacked me. I have to be protected." I said, "Why don't you like one man with a briefcase button down share with Wintif Shoes?" And since then, I was the highlight of my appointment with Donald Trump after that Wint deal with him. I dealt with his law firm and we can't part of the package deal. That's a one-in-a-lifetime. Absolutely. So with that, lots of examples of retail projects. But before we talk about more of them, the business grew based upon the relationships that you would develop with lawyers and the food there. Right. Since we sold so many properties and most of these properties were sold to attorneys who were doing bankruptcy on a part of bankruptcy from business to those who were fertile business and liars. We didn't have a context of these retailers. Why? Industrial companies. They said, "Oh, referrals can liars across America." So what was the first non-retal project you worked on? I can't answer that. Okay. I could give you a quick example. Yeah, I can. Okay. In a company in Jersey, there was a paper company that took reeds and cardboard through it into a machine that was a black loan furnace and I came cardboard. They went to bankruptcy and they hired me to sell the property. And there were scary type of characters, but I started to do negotiations. And lo and behold, someone shows up, gives me a check for a million dollars payable to 11 of my travel. As a deposit for the contract, the fellow came in with a word, "Brody slippers, earrings, long hair, California." And he didn't have a lawyer. He just signed a contract, which never ever happens no matter what the price is. So no one looks at my contract. While we were talking, I went out and called a bank to see if the check was good. It absolutely was good. So we signed the contract and we figured close in 30 days. We, two weeks later, we had a call from Reduncule insurance company saying, "Your buyer is in jail for being a cottage seller and drug dealer." We went to property and I said, "Well, we don't own anything while we have it under contract. Have some go see a sky in jail and make a deal with them getting a similar contract. I was telling you, and that's what, you know, I mentioned you happened. How's that one?" I helped out. Do you remember Alice Chalmers? Alice Chalmers was someplace in Ohio. Wisconsin. Wisconsin. George? Yeah, West Alice was. Wisconsin. They make big tractors and farm equipment. And what they did was with their excess debris, garbage, that they didn't use, they just jumped into a field. And the field would glow at night basically. It was green. It was all polluted. The one is to sell the, oh, a tremendous warehouse and this property. It was very difficult to sell because we had to sell it with all the information regarding people who had knowledge, knew that we signed the polluted property. Which reminds me of how you even talked to your bio-harm. International harvest. Yeah. International harvest makes it, they still manufacture the other world's largest manufacture, farmer-heavy farmer equipment, I think. And they had this huge plant, three affordable and square foot one building, inching the raw material at one end, and the other one came to the trucks. In fact, they had a paint plant right in the building itself. So when we sold the property, we had to disassemble the sample, disassemble the paint plant, and we had to fire the garbage right in there while we were using blow torches to take down that section of the building. That building was sold to your four different people, three million square feet. The buyer of that property, I think that was the one, was the owner. Yeah, it was the Wayne Bank, Wayne National Bank. The buyer of that property was the president of the bank and we go to his house, office for the closing and he takes out a credit card to pay for the building for many millions of dollars. I never had that, probably had 500,000 closings before I knew that, so I went to credit card like that. They said, "I don't know what to do." So I called the client, he said, "Moy don't know what to do either." They called the bank, they were saying, "Bank the owner bank." They called the bank and he said, "He does this, he believes that to get extra miles." Blimey, I'm believable. Did it work? Yeah, it worked. Have you had people come to close things with suitcases of cash? Oh yeah, we sold the piece of property and I think it's keepers getting floured. The man comes along with no lawyer and before we start any closing, since I've done this a few times, they said before we start, can I just see your certified funds or the information in the bank that the funds will be a wire transfer to us. So he says, "No, I'm not giving you cash. I'm not giving you a check. I'm going to give you cash." It's all in that suitcase. The suitcase was two foot wide and 10 feet tall. It's $10 million. And we went to law firm in Pascal, Rose in New York. And I was concerned and petrified. I said, "Man, how do we shingur?" I'm angry, they didn't tell me about $10 million. So I said to the lawyer, "Let's have a little recess. It's the assault stay here. We just want to talk about it." I went back to his office and said, "I never had anything like this. I'm afraid of my bank." He says, "Me too." But I said, "That's your office. I don't want to go back." It's an interesting about what we do here because I don't even tagging on this guy. I don't want to lose a sale. But more importantly, I want to save my life. We went back after 10-15 minutes and I think about it. I went back and told him about my bank receipt, the federal courts and the IRS and cash transactions that I don't want to start counting $10 million a month would be here forever. I'd like to postpone the closing. As long as you time time you need the assault, you can be a certified check. I said, "There's no default. Where am I like?" I was concerned about this guy. The assault came while we were close to my offer and we were certified checked. We had a lawyer again and closed the transaction. That's a good situation. That's one of them. I have another one I didn't tell you about this risk in Long Island. It's a very long time. The department stores closed. Someone took over and ran the bizards. They did his open Friday, sat in Sunday and rent out spacious 10-10 and they then left the buyer with only concession and the jewelry. He made a lot of money in this. So we saw this stuff and saved $1 million and he had an option to buy it and it made $800,000. That's the same. I don't know if you're going to exact numbers. I said, "Why don't you buy it?" Now he said, "No, I'll make the money in one year. Oh, there's nothing to pay for it. I didn't business." And then at the end of the year he bought this stuff and the bargain price. He was at the option because he made it. He had the option and made the money from his little bizards. His bizards. He asked him to get in a big department store. I don't know if they sell out of these bizards. Founded in 1981, Arthur B. Levine Company, partnered nationally with Adams Levine, is a premier security bond provider to the bankruptcy and restructuring community. Their primary focus is on bonds for bankruptcy trustees, plant administrators and receivers, as well as on bank depository bonds. Also offered are court litigation bonds such as appeals, supersedeers and TROs, and miscellaneous bonds such as for auction years and for law securities. All securities used are a-rated and they maintain a strong relationship with multiple carriers handling large capacity bonds around the country. Contact them at levinecompany.com. In addition to industrial, we talked a little bit about some retail, those hotels, restructures. Grossman's hotel was the major resort in the cask of several thousand rooms and they went bankrupt and we hired to sell the grossing gas and the plaintiff was aside from more than full debt to serve. Then a PGA course, site took a billboard on 17, the 20 by 30. I had a yellow red, yellow red flyers sending out bankruptcy grossing gas and I put down on their PGA course and send out probably 50,000 flyers around the country, maybe around the world even. And within up to weeks I get a letter from a very fine law firm saying PGA is a registered name and I'm going to sue you unless you see them assist. At that point I had out 50,000 flyers and probably advertisements and 20 different newspapers. I told them that it's all the- everything that's going around has done already and I had it represented that nothing will go out further with PGA and an MPGA downcow for us but not PGA on it. The buyer turned out to be Asian for example, I think from China, I came when the son was studying at Boston at NYU, where they had their prominent law firm and when they go skiing because grossing is emptying into at least with someone to build houses around the grocery property and the fuel of buy the houses were able to be able to use the facilities that grossed me. And on gross use, there was a big lake. There was a fight that people would buy out from the Chinese people, would concern that people would make a love on the lake. And we were fighting about it, we were going to control the lake, and what's going to happen with these people making love on the lake? And after that, for if our office back in Fort Nonsense, I said, this is not the 38th arrow, though, let's go forward with this. There was someone since then, I said, 38th arrow, they stay on the stomach out of the posing, and went to the elevator to buy out his son in the lawyer. I went out and said, listen, the guys I use on as an example, I will not say another word, come on back and let's finish this deal, forget about the way I said, they finally came back and bought the property, and probably two or three years later, they went to buy a boat. Yeah, I think it went through several bankruptcies. They had a crazy idea, they would make this a sort of golf club from New York, that people would drive up to gross days to play golf, and then come back. I said, how are you going to get there? I said, really, really go by bus. I said, this is closing was over, wait a second, you see what I'm like? I said, that's inside of the elevator work and shoot did not work. In New York City, lots of transactions, one without a Bulgaria, if that's happening. Well, Gary was on 5th Avenue in the upper 50s, I think on the east side of the street, I'm not sure. We had a small shoot store right on the corner, 57th and 5th opposite Trump Tower, both Simco S I M CEO, store was not too large, and it had like three or four years on the lease, there are no options. So, at least had a little value, long comes Bulgaria and say, they want to store. Do they have the adjacent space? No, no, no, so they weren't there yet. No, they weren't there yet. I said, listen, we do something because when you are, you go to the landlord and make a deal with the landlord and then I'll cancel the lease with the landlord for the next dollar and then you'll have your lease come to play. We say, we never heard such a thing like that, let's learn how it worked out. But if you look at 57th and 5th, you must spend a fortune to write to Bulgaria and say, sorry, did that deal because it cost me money. And then there was a sassine jeans. Sassine jeans, the court appointed the US trustee to take handle the case, because Sassine jeans was a major imported and sell of jeans throughout America and they had a warehouse packed with probably millions of dollars, millions plus dollars worth of jeans. So, trustee went to see the warehouse and then he hired us and two days later he went back to the warehouse and the warehouse was empty. To be called someone from the deadest side and said, listen, I'm going to close my eyes from two or three days. If the jeans are that back, they're going to be imprisoned for the rest of the line. Long the whole, they showed up again. And how about he had a fancy townhouse? Oh, the townhouse. What if they had a 66th street? I think a 63th townhouse. I think he was a drug user. I think. And each, before he could get to the camera, it was all over the place. He'd go back for 30 or 40 years, which was new. And he had the entire building. And then he went through the floors and he said, he had bullets. And he said, the closet. And on the top floor, he had his office. He'd do a bullet for his home, couldn't shoot him or bring him to his house. It was a dangerous character. I never met him. No, it's not. I'm tank goodness. Yeah, I actually remember being in there at the room, a wall facing his bed was covered with intelligence screenings. He swore and having a feed from one of the cameras around the house. And he had a pool downstairs, an amazing pool of innovation in the basement. Yeah, yeah, it's swimming pool in the basement. I think I saw him say that. I think so. I'm guessing $5,7 million is probably worth $5,200 million today, maybe one. Yeah, $6,300, $6,600. Yeah, it was beautiful property. At the other end of the spectrum, you had an experience with an apartment building and the Bronx. Oh, the judge needed your help. A judge in the federal district was in Son and District called and said, "We need your help." But you can't get paid for this. You please help us. They said, "Absolutely, judge." And I went down to the court room. I went to the judge. This is Judge Gallagher again. Yeah. And Judge Blackshee used to trust me at that time. He was trusty. They went together and he said, "Oh, we can't do us a favor." We had this apartment house in Brooklyn, the Bronx, that people watch services, but they don't want to pay the rent. And I went, "I could do the services. Nothing gets paid." Each time they come into court, they threaten the judge and the judge and the trustee. And they're frightened of the incident coming. We've settled on bar shows during the court room because they're concerned about these people. They call me and said, "Well, do us a favor." The police are crappy. We have no control of it. So you can't get paid. So you're on a car, you use your phone and call the one-man log that owns five or three hundred buildings in the Bronx, saying Paul Masley, goes his name. I asked him in a federal court house and Judge Gallagher would like to see you tomorrow to help the cut of the US government. And he said, "Do you have anything to do with me?" I said, "No, we need you to help me there." So we're coming to chambers and tells the judge, tells the story, and you kind of sell this by the streets of property because if you get in a court, you don't have to be on me and be killed. Along the whole, he said, "Okay, he calls me back to the next station, I'll buy it. It's a terrible piece of crap. It's falling apart." And I put it into the portfolio, so it doesn't. I said, "Give me $10,000." But $20,000? Probably $10,000. This is okay more you get to get a bit for $10,000. This was a multi-story apartment house. They rent for an auction. None of my yellow flies garbage. It's just to the court. I long hold this in Manitown City and it's an auction. There's someone sitting in the first row and then us and the judge calls the case and my client sends up, "I bid $10,000, so $20,000." And he said, "I know it's $20,000." No, it's $10,000. This man jumps up, he says, "$20,000." I said, "I may have a five minute recess." So I told him, "My client sends this and it's got a bit so quickly for my experience in bankruptcy bidding." I people get to get this quickly. Just give the judge a good time. It's $30,000. He said, "Well, I'll do that, but I won't be doing it for that. It's fine." And it doesn't matter to you. It does not. It's a bit so 30,000. You guys think they're 40 immediately and they said, "Okay, you, me, me, you want the recess. What's your bid? I said, "No, my client is not going to be interested." He said, "F, they're going to see my chambers." So he sold it to his fellow with $30,000 or $40,000. He went into chambers and closed the door. He just made a whack in the back. He says, "Thank you, Mowl." That was good. That was good. Well, again, no one gets interesting. Liberal supermarkets in Ohio were selling 10 to 15 supermarkets. Supermarkets are valued. We can say, "Well, the equipment in their place, because they're furnishing it, bringing it all out." The equipment is very expensive. So if you're selling with equipment, it goes, "It's very easy sell." So I come to court. The judge said, "It's the board when coming to chambers." He said, "I never had an auction here ever. I wanted to conduct the auction. You see in my chair, act as the judge, and after the auction is over, we want me back in and I'll confirm the sale." So he said, "Okay, so we went to the court when there have been 20, 30, 40 people in there. There's still a guy with a soggy cigar. This is the stump. I just don't remember that name. He's the major owner of supermarkets in that area at that time. He has this cigar in his mouth and it's not lit up. The building is going on. He's very successful. As a Mr. Stump, since he's successful, you're the owner who gets smoking in the courtroom." And how are supermarkets in Ohio? Have you ended up getting an auction and getting people to show up there? You know, only yellows and deads. We had a bailing service. Wherever we wanted, anywhere in America, we could find out who's there, what businesses. And we said, "I tell you probably 300,000 fighters a year in the subway yellow reds. Everyone knows it's ready, especially all the business people." That's how we got contacts. We had no contacts in Ohio for supermarkets. But after a while, it was in supermarkets and this, everyone knows because we dealt with every super market. We did a lot of supermarkets. Oh, yeah. PMPP, I mean, very successful company and for us. Yeah. I think you also did a lot of department stores. Oh, yeah. Well, these were the departments stores that are in James Wayne. These like came out, smaller came out, it's about America. They were all in our business almost within a two or three period, probably sold out of Mac as in the other ones I never heard of before. Probably sold on your 200, them, but they had that survive, but nothing like a supermarket, because they didn't have the fixes and equipment, and like a supermarket. Yeah. Yeah. So that industry basically Walmart. Well, you have a first I'm a funny story. Okay. But Acme supermarket just realized they come to the closing and the Acme real estate guy, he's wearing an Acme tie, just Acme home of the place. I said, I want to tie it. I said, I want to tie it to the next closing, which whatever, whatever, what was coming in just to give my prayers to cause me back to days, they said, well, the boy of directors, I believe it or not, the boy of directors, you can't have to give it to him. It's only for employees. I said, you can be sorry about that. The two days later, I get called from my wife and mom and said, oh, they're going to think why it's back me. I said, once it's a mic's open about just cans of peas and carrots, you don't even know about this. Yeah. All these different price for Acme on it. I call the guy, I'm actually listening. I can find it for you by cancer, peas and carrots. I really want to tie. He said, I can't give it to you because they don't give it to them. What we have there. I want to hold it. Let's see if what comes in. My secretary, he tells me that Mr. Agatha's name is, he wants to see you. He's in the fire. I mean, I stole the tie for you. He didn't realize I was doing this as a joke. He told us there is time for Acme. He shouldn't want it. He dealt with speaking of supermarkets, or Acme tedious. Let me tell you a little bit. Let me just give it to mine. We used to go to it back to annual bankruptcy convention, usually in Las Vegas. Everyone would go there. We were like 20 to 30 thousand people, shopping these conventions. We used to have a booth with our name and all the publicity on his yellow reds, some of the factors. The ban is for yellow reds and it's now penetrating bonds of touchy rolls up front. It doesn't work by if you can remember touchy roll. We used to give out premiums. The USDA was sold footballs yellow and red footballs. We got name on it, G-Realty. I said someone was working by a pick that they put one. That's right. It's really, of course, the arena is for like it's for all. I almost didn't have to launch this judge. He's wearing a bad says judge. I never spoke with him. I said, "Oh, you know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm a big guy. Who are you? What did I do?" He said, "Really an ice cream at the pool and so it takes money of footballs and hits my ice cream come." I was saying to myself, "This guy is some jagged ass." I said, "I'm sorry, judge. I'm not able to do that." He said, "Just easy, you." I have five grandchildren and I have five footballs, so I gave them five footballs. Mine was that another judge was by the Mojist, the judge song, so he's a trusty of an orphanage with a lot of kids and 100 children. He likes to football for the kids. So I gave him a box of 500 of them. I'm pretty good about that one. Yeah, that's nice. Corvettes, it was a big name in New York. What was your experience with Corvettes? Oh, I made it for legal theory. Corvettes had a stock donation on 34th Street, which was in their background. The landlord was a potential insurance company that had a mortgage on the that was ex- and the redemption had a mortgage on the property for many millions of millions of dollars. They were trying to foreclose the Mojist and we were going to throw out the leaf. Corvettes in there. So you guys truly knew that Justice Horde of Chief Judge of the Supreme Court said, "There's too much multiplicity in lawsuits. I love that term." So I took the lawyers at the law for it to work with them. The name escapes me. I prepared some papers that were going stopping the proceeding of the foreclosure and bringing it into the magazine Corvettes, and doing a lot of policy in lawsuits. He said, "We never heard such a theory." He said, "It's a both-pointer special pretty as you would have been." Of course, they put together and we were successful at it, as we were kind of called the lawyer for prudential, which was. Carvelle. Well, God, so Harvey, he said, "You're back in the back. He said, "Send a bitch you want to case." That's what I wanted the other story that goes on. Pervettes, I don't mean. What's the name yet? Pervettes. It's a Korean veteran. I was extremely veteran at the Gen Corvettes. It was a discounted deposit store. They were successful until. Where they did wrong, and I have no idea. I got one other story. It was very successful. Ladies, the parallel chain in England or Europe, where many hundreds of stores are very, very successful, is called, I think, labels for less. What you would do is look at a label from a prominent manufacturer. That got that same dress from a manufacturer company in the Far East, and a hefty price. We opened stores here in America, but he had no control. He opened 50, 60 stores, and then he opened another 50 stores within two or three years. He had buyers buying the dresses. They were very efficient in sending me a 29, 2000 dozen, I mean, 50,000 dozen. And his wife dresses and head need for it. She kept opening the stores to sell the merchandise. Along the whole, of course, he went bankrupt. Thank you for listening to Turn Around Time from the Turn Around Management Association. I hope that you enjoyed this episode. Please take a moment to subscribe to Turn Around Time anywhere you listen to podcasts. That way, you'll be sure to catch every episode and every conversation.