Update: All Finlay Sales Postponed
A source who was at yesterday’s hearing regarding the sale of Finlay assets tells me this:
Zale had objected to the winning bid for the intellectual property of Baileys Banks and Biddle, which went to a recently created company called Synergies. In court papers, Zale claimed the auction was conducted unfairly, and offered to up its bid by $200,000. (Why Zale wants the IP for BBB is the subject of much speculation.) The creditor’s committee actually agreed with Zale, wanting to maximize its proceeds.
With all this talk over whether the auction was conducted fairly, the judge said he would have to review the auction transcript. As a result this put every sale on hold. This includes the sales of 14 Carlyle stores to Adamas Holdings, who, my source confirms, involves former Carlyle owner Russell Cohen, who has bid for those stores before.
exjewelgal commented:
Zale doesn't think....just looks in a crystal ball and then hires another idiot
exjewelgal commented:
Really? Zales has no thought process at all for reworking anything. The leaders of this company are corrupt but worse....braindead.
mjagerman commented:
good luck
MJB commented:
Well I don't blame the creditors for wanting an extra $200k! I find it EXTREMELY interesting that Zale Corp is really gunning for the BBB IP. Hasn't Zale ended up with all of the leases to the BBB stores that Finlay defaulted on? Looks like they may be planning on keeping BBB around as a retailer. Then again, if all of the inventory and fixtures are sold, what is Zale left with besides possibly some empty cases and signage? Is the current Zale team up to the merchandising hurdles required to successfully run the guild jeweler concept? Perhaps they're going to "rework" the BBB concept to bring it downmarket to more successfully compete against Ben Bridge and Jared, who stock 14K items and more promotional pieces in addition to the high end stock...then BBB could successfully share core skus with Zales and Gordon's. I just want to see as many jobs saved as possible.
