Saturday, September 20, 2008

Ben Lomond Hotel Ownership Throws a Hail Mary

Trustee sale set for September 29; owner plans to file Chapter 11 petition

By Curmudgeon

Sad story on the front page of this morning's Standard Examiner. The Ben Lomond Hotel has defaulted on its loans and plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in hope of reorganizing and refinancing its debt.

The plan apparently involves selling a lot of the hotel's condo units to raise cash to retire as much of the loan as possible and to enable refinancing of what will remain. Selling off a lot of condos into the current declining market seems a hail-mary pass with time running out on the clock to me. But I hope it's successful. The Ben Lomond Historic Hotel is too valuable a part of Historic 25th Street and downtown Ogden to lose.

7 comments:

RudiZink said...

You're right, Curm. "Hail Mary" was exactly the phrase that ran through my mind when I read this morning's article. Imagine trying to sell 30 condo units in the current market, even with a ossible extended timeline.

Of course the same depressed market forces operate if the lender manages to get relief from the Bankruptcy court's automatic stay order. The lender winds up with a somewhat dilapidated property that it will likely be forced to liquidate at a fire sale price, or... allow to sit vacant and deteriorating for an unknown period of time.

Perhaps its time for the lender to take Senator Barney Frank's advice, and consider operating cooperatively with its borrower.

Anonymous said...

Maybe Matty can take the lead from our most disliked president, and bail them out. Of course it depends on if they made a substantial campaign contribution.

Anonymous said...

Hay! I'm from New York, watching the BYU-Wyoming game, and have been fascinated about the Midget-League football stickers all the BYU players wear on their helmets.

Is this NORMAL in Utah?

It seems pretty bush league to me.

OgdenLover said...

I too am from New York but it's been a long time since I've been back.

Is your obnoxious behaviour NORMAL in New York nowadays?

It seems pretty rude and troll-like to me.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps Ben Lomond Hotel should give the Federal Reserve Central Bank a call.

The word on the street is that they are into this bailing out of businesses in trouble.

Their secret; they go in the back room and print off a couple hundred million dollars.

It is really a win win. Nobody wants to see the CEO's of any company loose their millions!

Anonymous said...

Mr. Solution:

Calling the Fed won't help. But perhaps a call to Comrade Bush might do some good.

Anonymous said...

Why the U.S. capital system will fail. (In simplified form)

The U.S. system is all about rewarding a person who is willing to take a chance (so I'm told). When this person succeeds he/she gets all the profit and glory, while the common man, who buys the product Mr. "succesful" sells, receives nothing but overpriced made in Asia product. Meanwhile the person of high success lives the high live buying and selling houses and driving up inflation.

Then when this "sucessful" person makes too many bad decisions and looses it all guess who gets to pick up the tab for his/hers failed idea.

The common man.

My question is how long will this system work when compared to China's (almost) "socialist" system. Where if a person does well the entire nation (including the common man) benifits.

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