by Jan. 30 Chapter 7 filing lists many consumers who are owed money from deposits made on furniture
ACTON, Mass. — Bankruptcy documents filed Jan. 30 with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Massachusetts offer a window into the financial fallout expected from Circle Furniture’s Chapter 7 bankruptcy case.
The filing provides details on specific amounts owed to creditors including nearly 400 individuals that put deposits down for furniture before the company filed the Chapter 7 bankruptcy. In a Chapter 7 case, a company typically liquidates the business through a sale of its various assets.
The victims include individuals that made deposits between $48 and more than $27,000 for items ranging from upholstery to wood furniture produced by well-known brands such as American Leather, Caperton Furniture Works, Ekornes, Norwalk and others.
Altogether the bankruptcy documents indicate there are between 200 and 999 creditors, of which the nearly 400 individuals make up a significant number of those impacted.
The filing lists another 145 businesses that also have submitted claims ranging from a low of $15 to a high of nearly $2.4 million for business services from Podium Corp.
Some of the high-ticket business claims are for commercial leases, including $153,333 owned to Bornstu LLC, $117,678 owed to Craig Rd. Associates, $94,297 owned to R.E.M. Realty Trust and $53,973 owed to Three of Hearts.
Other debts include $110,680 in business loans from Mulligan Funding and logistics services from companies including Elite Home Delivery, owed $57,825 and Consolidated Freight Services, owed $16,561.
Many of the other business debts are owed to well-known furniture companies, including brands that for years have brought the retailer products sold to customers around Massachusetts and other parts of New England and beyond.
These are some of the furniture companies and the amounts over $10,000 they are owed in the case:
+ American Leather: $247,052
+ Ekornes: $131,115
+ Norwalk Furniture: $103,258
+ Caperton Furniture Works: $83,045
+ Woodforms: $79,330
+ El Ran Furniture: $71,036
+ Copeland Furniture: $52,897
+ Saloom Furniture: $44,189
+ Amisco: $34,455
+ Lee Industries: $25,980
+ Whittier Wood Furniture: $19,616
+ Surya: $18,028
+ Luonto Furniture: $16,228
+ Himola/Eurolink: $14,629
+ Lyndon Woodworking: $14,383
+ Glassismo: $13,090
+ Skovby Mobelfabrik: $12,509
+ McCreary Modern: $10,234
Smaller claims for under $10,000 were filed by resources such as Four Hands, Hooker Furnishings, Visual Comfort, Younger Furniture, Vermont Handcrafted Furniture, Wesley Allen, Thayer Coggin, Howard Elliott, Sagebrook Home, Spectra Wood, Revolution Furnishings, Palliser, Mercatus Rickers & Timmerman and Nourison, to name several.
Altogether the claims in the group that includes those who made deposits total $2.074 million, while those comprising business debts total nearly $4.8 million.
How much these creditors receive in the bankruptcy is an unknown at this point.
Consumers that put deposits on a credit card are likely to receive their money back by initiating a dispute with the merchant. In such cases, a credit card company will issue a temporary credit and then make that credit permanent once it completes its own investigation.
But as we have seen before in previous liquidations, the odds are likely slim that other business debts will be repaid in full or that these creditors will see anything close to what they are owed.
Yet the filing makes one thing abundantly clear. The company failed despite the best efforts of its suppliers and the hard-earned cash of its many loyal customers. In the case of key suppliers, they could be the ones left holding the proverbial financial bag in this unfortunate turn of events including a sale of the retailers’ assets.
