A single bulk buyer is being touted by trustees as the preferred choice to acquire the assets of bankrupt aircraft developer Adam Aircraft, which are being put up for sale on 4 April.
The lowest auction bid for the Denver, Colorado-based start-up which entered Chaper 7 bankrutcy last month, is $10 million. Each interested party must place $250,000 into an escrow account managed by trustee Jeffrey Weinman before bidding starts on 3 April.
General Capital Partners is soliciting interest, and Weinman's hired attorney John Smiley says the trustees favour "an enterprise sale of this entire business.
If that doesn't produce satisfactory results, then the trustees will sell the assets on a piece or lot-sale basis," he says. Assets do not include buildings or property, as all three manufacturing sites were leased.
The sale is of aircraft, aircraft parts, intellectual property licences and patents, customer and vendor contracts, aircraft certifications, manufacturing equipment and backlog orders.
Smiley is not working to expand that list, although he does say: "There's always a possibility that we could recover assets that might not be readily apparent to the creditors."
A bulk sale leaves open the possibility of renewed production of the Adam A500 piston twin and a second wind in certification of the A700 twin-engine very light jet.
The A700 was to be the backbone of at least three air taxi operators planning to launch operations this year. US-based Magum Jet has 110 A700s on order for its Stratford, Connecticut-based operation.
Monte Carlo, Monaco-based NexusJets has ordered 96 aircraft, while Adam's Chinese distributor and air taxi start-up Hainan Zhong Hong Tai General Airlines has ordered 50 of the type.
"I heard there may be still hope for reorganisation," says Jason Fan, chief executive. "I'm going to wait for few weeks before seeking other alternatives."
Source: FlightGlobal.com
