Fowler, did you forget to take pics and post?
RCJ
Ah My Dear RC John -
Let us be charitable to the poor fellow and not rub salt in the wound....
however, since soemone poked the odiferous corpus with a stick I thought to look about and lo and behold, we discover that the folks who recieved their refunds owe it all to someone they probably never heard of!
Please Be Aware: Those who got refunds, it was not due to Mike Blank, or Kevin Tierney ( the self-titled turn-around specialist Blank went to) .
You owe your refunds to Wyoming native Jay Lesser who worked for each of the previous owners.
Here is my heavily edited version of an article posted July 21, 2013 12:00 pm
http://trib.com/business/poor-management-unfilled-orders-lead-to-glenrock-business-s-failure/article_ed53d03c-7138-5c34-9806-a80817f29ff6.htmlWe are familiar with the story just prior to the refunds. Blank had CAD drawings, some prototype parts, a building,
and $143,000 in deposits. From the below story it would appear he had no intention of making any refunds.
let us review these snips from the article:
-----
- Art Alphin promised to move A-Square Rifle and ammunition company to Glenrock, WY.
- Glenrock built a $1.5 mill facility for Alphin to lease and to employ 23 locals.
- Alphin proved to be unreliable, and after a federal investigation Glenrock pushed for new leadership
- new owners took over, named the business Sharps Rifle Co, and took orders to build M&H revolvers
- the new owners Michael Blank and Al Jones, brochures and computer-generated images but were unable to produce
products.
- Michael Blank approached Tearney in the summer of 2011 .
- Under a re-org Blank turned over to Tierney the remaining equipment estimated @ ~ $70,000.
They had no products, no income, no way to pay rent, and a liability of $1.5 million facility and equipment, Tierney said the best thing the company could do was surrender to its creditors.
In early 2012, he arranged a deal on rent payments with the town of Glenrock that would allow him to raise new capital to start rifle production.
At about the same time Clyde Hutchins, (senior assistant attorney general for Wyoming) led a Wyoming attorney general's investigation into the company in 2012.
"Hutchins said investigators found roughly 140 consumer complaints dating back to 2009. When paying customers asked Sharps Rifle Co. for a refund, they were told no refunds were available."
"Investigators never saw a finished pistol, Hutchins said, though the business's owners, Michael Blank and Al Jones, offered plenty of flashy brochures and computer-generated images. In 2012, the AG's office mandated the company refund the customers, who paid a collective $143,000 to Sharps Rifle Company."
Tierney was ~ $1 million away from reaching his start-up purse, when Jay Lesser and an unknown financier bought it.
"Jay Lesser is now the president of Broadsword Group, a limited liability company that owns every enterprise that has come before it in the Glenrock building. Despite lofty projections of dozens of helping hands at the factory and millions of dollars in sales, not one of the previous companies employed more than four people, Lesser said. He estimated fewer than 40 guns have come off the line there. Today he oversees a six-man operation that recently turned out its first loads of ammunition, packaged and ready for sale.
“I’ve always looked at this as the Field of Dreams,” Lesser said. “Build it, and they will come.”
He started by mailing refunds to people who deposited money on Merwin Hulbert pistols that never came. He built and shipped rifles that A-Square and Alphin never produced, he said.
And unlike his predecessors, Lesser said, he will not take a dime until a finished product is packaged and ready to go. The company plans to manufacture bullets and rifles on site and have 20 employees by the first of next year. "
read this article for the details:
http://trib.com/business/poor-management-unfilled-orders-lead-to-glenrock-business-s-failure/article_ed53d03c-7138-5c34-9806-a80817f29ff6.htmlinterestingly, I see the thread we had in which one of the prior head honchos replied to us has been deleted.
yhs
prof marvel
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