Palmer Johnson Inc Files Ch 11; Its parent sells property

Cash flow problems at Palmer Johnson Acquisition Corp., the company founded during 2000 by investor Andrew McKelvey, resulted in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by its Wisconsin-based yacht-building subsidiary Palmer Johnson Inc. and the sale of yacht-building assets of Palmer Johnson Savannah Inc. in Savannah, Ga.
The bankruptcy filing by PJ Inc. occurred during March but the Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin-based firm can continue operating under supervision by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Milwaukee.
As of Boating Industry’s deadline, PJ Inc. was seeking debtor-in-possession financing and preparing a financial re-organization plan for submission to the Bankruptcy Court, said Phil Friedman, president and CEO of PJ Inc.
PJ Inc. reported to the Bankruptcy Court in late March that its unsecured debts amounted to $5.6 million while its “hard assets” were valued at $6.3 million, Friedman said.
Friedman added that, during the next three to six months, he would “redouble recent efforts to find either additional working capital and/or a buyer or buyers for the company, which will allow PJ Inc. to continue operating on a permanent, ongoing basis.”
Meanwhile, before PJ Inc. filed bankruptcy, “substantially all the assets” of its sister company, PJ Savannah Inc., were sold to a new entity called Palmer Johnson Savannah LLC, said Skip Robinson, general manager of PJ Savannah LLC.
— By jeff kUrowski