The Lawsuits Come Rolling In

Now it has been over a month since our last update on the company previously known as Phoenix and a lot has happened, so let’s take a moment to get every up to speed. It seems the three amigos from Cincinnati have found out that not only do their employees dislike not being paid, but their suppliers and their mortgage broker do not like being paid as well.

Wesbanco, the mortgage broker has filed for foreclosure on Phoenix back on February 17, 2009. Perhaps someone should not have taken that second mortgage in December. To date there are currently four lawsuits filed by former suppliers of the company which Phoenix failed to pay for various building supplies over the company's two year existence. Finally there is one lawsuit by a former creditor of the company. As of March 9, 2009, Phoenix has a total of 6 pending court cases in various stages of litigation.

With all the legal trouble this extremely reputable company has encountered recently, what’s an owner to do? Well my friends file for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, and that is just what they did. Chapter 7 bankruptcy is the liquidation of all the assets of company to pay off the debt to all the fully-secured creditors. Which means if you have a lawsuit on file or are a secured creditor you will be entitled to some restitution through the sale of companies assets. For the employees who were not paid, they unfortunately are unsecured creditors. By filing for Chapter 7, Ed Fanning and Nick Jevic have decided this a fight they cannot win, and it would be best to protect themselves from future lawsuits by filing for bankruptcy.

Edward Fanning and Nick Jevic have ultimately finally conceded, had their egos crushed, and by filling bankruptcy have realized they nothing more than couple of failures not only in business but in the evolutionary chain of life. We have learned when it comes to business this past year the evolutionary development in human species has missed many opportunities to strengthen the species; from wall street bankers, auto executives, politicians, to Ed Fanning, Nick Jevic and Thomas Hennings; one can only hope their children will realize their parents genetic flaws and failures and choose to never reproduce. 

Public Records

Almost every move an entity makes from getting a mortgage to filing a lawsuit is of public record. In some counties in Ohio this public record is available for anyone to view on the internet without having to search the court house. For those of you who would like to view some of the public records on Phoenix Building Solutions and it's three evil henchmen, we will provide you with some helpful links and tips. 

Visit the following websites  

search for the keywords 

"Phoenix Buildings Solutions" "Ed Fanning" "Tom Hennings" "Nikola Ljubisavljevic" 

Montgomery County Recorder    (Mortgages)

Montgomery County Clerk of Courts (Lawsuits)

Montgomery County Auditor  (Taxes/Property)

Hamilton County Recorder

Hamilton County Clerk of Courts

Hamilton County Auditor

A Letter From a Reader

The following Email was sent to us by an anonymous source.

 

The best deals come to those who state (potential(for legal purposes))untruths,

Early In the tenure of Tom Hennings and his bumbling amigos, All former suppliers and employees for Benchmark Industries were contacted in one form or another to be told one very important item.  Money was no longer an issue for the operation of this company.  There would be a 401K, flex spending accounts, all bills paid on time…in short The boys were here to save the day.

As these suppliers can attest, Phoenix regaled them with stories of massive orders, on time payments and a relationship that would be envied by all in the building business.  In fact that was one reason to remove the Benchmark name, it was a blight on this shiny new organization and must be removed and never spoken of again.  An interesting tactic to take an existing company and product known within an industry and simply remove it from existence and start from scratch, but that was the plan.  Slowly all elements of the old company were removed and new items were added.  The office got a dishwasher, a water filter and thousands of dollars in renovation, the factory also received some needed and some rather frivolous repairs and renovation.  Additionally, the smallish fleet of trucks and vehicles received an interesting treatment.  Many of the trucks were deemed not roadworthy by the resident leader, Mr. Hennings.  These vehicles had been operational prior to the purchase and had served the company well, yet Mr. Hennings deemed it an acceptable expense to sub out transportation and other vehicle related expenses at an increase of thousands and thousands of dollars to the overhead. 

Again for those of you following at home, functioning equipment was removed from service to be subcontracted at a greater expense, often going so far as to pay rental and mileage fees on rental trucks.  Where did all of Phoenix’s money go?  To the boys yes.  To random, often times inexplicable expenses yes. To the employees? NO.  To improving the product quality, specifications, marketing, customer satisfaction, service, outside sales of the organization? No, no, no, no, no, and no.  So one might be forced to wonder what caused the failure of this entity…..Those who were running it would seem to be the obvious answer.

Now, back to where we started, The overall money scheme.  Again suppliers were horribly harassed with promises of sales and payments, and at least one supplier has spoken and said none of it was true.  Traditionally suppliers offer their best prices to their best customers, Phoenix was arguably their worst customer and continually pushed for the best prices, if I am not mistaken, this supplier is still sitting on stock they ordered some 5 months ago and is owed money from over 8 months ago.  What happened to all the grandiose plans and promises?  Where’s the love Phoenix???  Hello, are you there???  Oh yes you paid yourselves and got out of the business.  Thank you suppliers, thank you employees….see ya’ in the funny pages, we’re outta here.

As the lawsuits flow in, 4 to date, including the aforementioned salesperson on the Tom blog,  two of their principle suppliers, and another.   Wonder what Vegas has for the over/under on lawsuits against these guys.

Surely there is some bailout money for an organization that is seemingly as poorly run as any investment firm on Wall Street, Maybe that’s what they were angling for all along.

As seems to be their specialty, this will end up being someone else’s fault.  Couldn’t be them, they’re brilliant; all these people had it coming.  Tom and Ed had dues to pay at the club, and Infinities to buy. 

As James Brown said “…I got mine don’t worry ‘bout his..”