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Crushpad to auction off its assets today
Financially-stricken Sonoma-based custom winemaking business Crushpad is to sell off its assets in a single lot auction to the highest bidder later today.
Crushpad CEO Peter Ekman
According to the Santa Rosa-based PressDemocrat.com, grapes, grape juice, wine, machinery, trademarks, patents and customer mailing lists will form part of the auction conducted by Mountain View firm Sherwood Partners.
Bidders will compete for the company’s entire set of assets, according to Martin Pichinson, co-founder of Sherwood Partners.
The property transfer, known as assignment, is an alternative to bankruptcy.
“Our concern is to collect as much money as possible for the creditors, secured and unsecured,” Pichinson told PressDemocrat.com.
“We’re trying to avoid a mass liquidation of the business,” Philip Von Burg, a principal of CastleGate Partners, which is trying to buy the assets, told the site.
“A lot of these customers have been waiting for their wines for a long time. We’re trying to be the good guys and find a solution that works for everyone,” he added.
Von Burg believes the company owes “at least a couple of million dollars” to its creditors.
Around 500 clients have over 900 barrels stored at Sebastiani Vineyards in Sonoma, where Crushpad ran its operation.
The auction will take place today at the offices of Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP in San Francisco at 10am PDT.
Founded in San Francisco in 2004, Crushpad, which allowed customers to make their own barrels of wine, has struggled since the 2008 economic crisis.
This June, CEO Peter Ekman warned investors that the company would fail without additional financing.
At the same time, customers began reporting that Crushpad would not let them remove wine from the facility.
Ekman refused to comment this week on the company’s future.
However, Crushpad spokesman Steve Ryan wrote in a recent email: “Liquidation of Crushpad is a real possibility. If the company were to be liquidated, there is a risk that many clients will lose their wine.”
As recently as late June, Crushpad denied it was to close. “Our doors are open for business as usual. We appreciate your support,” the company Tweeted.