Tag Archives: bankruptcy
Auctions May Help Define Direction Of Illinois Farmland Prices
Murray Wise Associates | October 18, 2013 After spending much of the year on the biggest set of auctions in the company’s history, the Murray Wise Associates team now faces a new challenge, with a lineup of Illinois sales that may give a hint at what’s ahead for farmland prices. The company will conduct two Illinois farmland auctions in a single day Thursday, Nov. 7, with two other auctions following close behind in Clay and Crawford counties. “The first few sales at the end of harvest usually tell us a good bit, and this year, it will be especially interesting,” said Joe Bubon, executive vice president of the auction company. “The Chicago Fed recently reported that while Illinois farmland prices were up 17 percent for the year ending July 1, they were actually down a percentage point for the quarter.” But, Bubon added, the volume for that quarter was low. “We’ll get a clearer picture now as to whether that was a blip or whether a flatter market will establish itself,” he said. Murray Wise Associates hopes to build on the momentum from its $75 million set of auctions of vegetable land, packing plants and other assets – primarily in Florida and Virginia – in the bankruptcy of tomato packing giant East Coast Brokers and Packers. “That was a unique opportunity for us, and kept us busy through the summer months. But the timing was good because it occurred during a lull in the Midwest, and we set numerous company records with it. Now, we’re getting back to our bread and butter, with an opportunity to gauge the market for Midwestern land,” he said. In the first of the two Nov. 7 auctions, bidding will begin at 10 a.m. at the Royal Community Center for the sale of three tracts in Ogden Township. That afternoon, the auction team will move to the Franks Center in Philo for the sale of 200 acres in Crittenden Township. “Both of these are very productive farms with good soils, and I think we will see some interest by investors as well as area farmers. The Clay and Crawford properties both have substantial tracts of contiguous farmland and recreational land. It will be telling to see if these sell to smaller buyers or what role the larger institutional buyers might play,” said Bubon. “For quite a while, there has been a shortage of available farmland relative to demand, so this will be a very nice opportunity for someone to add to existing holdings.” Continue reading
Detroit files for bankruptcy
Detroit files for bankruptcy Steven Church, Dawn McCarty and Margaret Cronin Fisk (Bloomberg) / 20 July 2013 Detroit, the cradle of the automobile assembly line and a symbol of industrial might, filed the biggest US municipal bankruptcy after decades of decline left it too poor to pay billions of dollars owed bondholders, retired cops and current city workers. “I know many will see this as a low point in the city’s history,” Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, a Republican, said in a letter on Thursday authorising the filing in US Bankruptcy Court in Detroit. “Without this decision, the city’s condition would only worsen.” Michigan’s largest city joins Jefferson County, Alabama, and the California cities of San Bernardino and Stockton in bankruptcy. The filing shattered the presumption of many bondholders that local governments, eager to continue borrowing at reasonable rates, would do whatever it took, including raise taxes, to come up with the money to meet bond obligations. Kevyn Orr, the city’s emergency manager, said the debt is $18 billion. While under court protection, Detroit can stop paying some debts, is temporarily immune from most lawsuits and may be able to ask a judge to cancel contracts, including union agreements. Under Chapter 9 of the US Bankruptcy Code, the first step is likely to be a court fight over whether the city was entitled to bankruptcy protection, a challenge that would ask if the city was truly insolvent and it had no alternative to filing. Detroit’s filing “is going to affect a number of local governments around the country,” said Keith W. Mason, a bankruptcy attorney with McKenna Long & Aldridge. “It calls for greater early intervention.” In trading on Thursday, investors demanded higher yields to buy Detroit debt rather than top-rated municipals. Unlimited general-obligation bonds maturing April 2028 traded with an average yield of 5.73 per cent, about 2.3 percentage points more than benchmark munis, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That’s the biggest yield gap since June 24. The bonds are insured by Assured Guaranty Ltd. The city that gave the world the Model T and fuelled the American love affair with tailfins, chrome fenders and big-block V-8 engines began a long decline in the middle of the last century as US carmakers began moving production out of town, and many residents followed. The stomping grounds of Harley Earl, who helped make the Chevrolet Corvette, and Marvin Gaye, a mainstay of Motown music, emptied as the suburbs swelled. Now the city is plagued by barren lots and empty buildings. Its population, which peaked at 1.85 million in 1950, has declined to about 700,000, according to US Census data. Manufacturing jobs fell from about 296,000 in 1950 to fewer than 27,000 in 2011. About 60,000 properties in the city, or 15 per cent of all parcels, were barren and at least 78,000 buildings were vacant, including 38,000 deemed potentially dangerous, Orr said in a report this year. Median household income was less than $28,000, compared with $49,000 statewide, and more than 36 per cent of residents lived in poverty, 2011 Census data show. Continue reading
How Regulation Helped Cause the Housing Crisis (John A. Allison)
Former BB&T Chairman and CEO John A. Allison discusses how mandates like Sarbanes Oxley and the Patriot Act helped cause the housing meltdown and financial c… Continue reading
