The Boston Store’s parent company Bon-Ton hit a snag in trying to find a buyer Wednesday after a judge denied a request allowing the company to pay a fee to an investor group interested in buying them.
According to our partners at the Milwaukee Business Journal, the fee would have been used for the investor group to conduct due diligence ahead of the company's April 16 auction.
Now that the fee has been rejected by the courts, it’s uncertain if the group can bid on the company at the auction, which put’s the company’s future in jeopardy. Aside from the investor group, the Milwaukee Business Journal reports there were only three other bids for the company which all would wind down the business.
A Bon-Ton spokesperson issued the following statement to the Milwaukee Business Journal.
We remain in active discussions with DW Partners and other members of the investor group to complete an asset purchase agreement as we proceed toward the court-supervised auction scheduled to be held on April 16, 2018."
Bankruptcy Court Judge Mary Walrath said she rejected the fee because it wasn’t compliant with the bid procedures she approved.
“I’m concerned that the integrity of the process is being offended here,” Walrath told the Milwaukee Business Journal. “We have a potential, not an actual bidder, who appears to be being preferred by the debtor by agreeing to give them reimbursement of fees simply to get them to make a bid. Its contrary to the bid procedures.”
