OBI Seafoods and its CEO, John Hanrahan, have filed documents backing a request from Peter Pan Seafoods Co-Owner Rodger May to amend the receivership it entered by court order in April 2024.
Peter Pan entered receivership on 25 April by Wells Fargo, its largest creditor. May, who is also Peter Pan’s president and chief growth officer, has been fighting with the Stapleton Group, a financial consultancy firm appointed as controller of the company’s assets, over its efforts to sell some of the company’s assets to rival Silver Bay Seafoods.
According to court documents, Silver Bay has offered USD 35 million (EUR 32.1 million) for Peter Pan’s canned seafood inventory and a one-third share in the Kent Warehousing and Labeling (KWL) facility in Kent, Washington.
May countered with a USD 36 million (EUR 33 million) offer for the same assets and made separate offers of USD 31 million (EUR 28.5 million) for the canned stock alone, USD 4.6 million (EUR 4.2 million) for the interest in the KWL facility alone, and USD 4.3 million (EUR 4 million) for Peter Pan’s Port Moller, Alaska, processing plant. Alternatively, May offered USD 58 million (EUR 53.3 million) for all of Peter Pan’s inventory, as well as the Port Moller plant and the share in the KWL warehouse.
On 13 June, OBI Seafoods, a Peter Pan creditor, backed May’s bid to modify the receivership to provide him the ability to be notified of efforts to sell Peter Pan assets and bid on them if he chooses. The company also claimed the current receivership order is “unclear and potentially contrary to Washington’s Receivership Act.”
“The receiver should not have any rights greater than what is allowed by Washington law,” OBI said. “The receivership order would purport to allow the sale of a membership interest without notice, without regard for contractual rights of co-owners and without regard to Washington’s Limited Liability Companies Act; consequently, it should be struck.”
In a supplementary filing on 14 June, Kenneth W. Hart, KWL’s corporate counsel, said he had not been notified of ...
