Re: Loopers-Delight-d Digest V02 #833

[Bill Monk <billmonk@mac.com>]

My guess is, Musicians Friend bought a warehouse load of them from Great 
American Group (the liquidator that paid roughly 74 cents on the dollar 
for the Mars inventory). You may have noticed MF's veiled reference to 
this transaction on their home page recently.

Of Mars' unsecured creditors, Line 6 was #15 on the list: $323,830.12 
owed them. That's a LOT of gadgets. 

<http://www.harmony-central.com/News/2002/Mars-Music-Auction.html>

Mars owed secured creditors about $33 million, and had about $64 million 
in inventory (at their cost). Assuming the liquidator bought it for about 
$47 million (74%), the Mars bankruptcy court can probably pay off the 
secured creditors in full. 

After the lawyers, bankruptcy trustees, etc, take their cut of the 
remaining $14 million (acually they'll take their cut -first-), the 
unsecured creditors, including the equipment manufacturers, share 
anything left. The top 19 manufacturers alone are owed about $13.5 
million, so it's easy to see how little will be left to go around.

Meanwhile, if Line 6 weren't already planning on killing the Pro modeler 
line, Mars did it for them. Line 6 gets to sit around and watch their 
property being sold, with no benefit to them, at a price that guarantees 
no other retailer will order another unit for a long time, if ever. Then, 
maybe in a couple years, the bankruptcy court will send a check for 
20-30% of what the gear was worth this year. And that's just one 
manufacturer. Roland was owed almost 2 million alone....

>My god! Christmas has come early for some people!

I may buy one myself. But the whole deal is a pretty bad Christmas 
present for the musical instrument industry....