The consultant who has been running Express Grain Terminals LLC for most of the past four months has been reluctant to talk publicly about the company’s situation.
But testimony he gave earlier this month at a hearing held by the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce provides some insight as to what Gerrard has observed at the troubled company.
The Taxpayers Channel obtained a copy of the transcript from that Feb. 3 hearing, which led Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson on Thursday to revoke Express Grain’s warehouse licenses. Gipson said he took that step after determining that the company had committed fraud by submitting a falsified financial audit report when it applied last year for renewal of the licenses.
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Gerrard, with CR3 Partners LLC, was appointed as chief restructuring officer for Express Grain after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in late September.
He has taken over the day-to-day responsibilities of managing the company, assuming the duties previously performed by John Coleman, the company’s embattled president. Gerrard’s firm is also actively trying to find buyers for the company.
During his testimony on Feb. 3, Gerrard said he found the Express Grain workers, who number about 150, to be “very disillusioned.”
“There had been some communications to the workforce and I think to the community in general that the things at Express Grain were, you know, on some solid footing and moving forward. The bankruptcy filing was a shock and a surprise to everyone,” Gerrard testified.
He said that the company’s processing facility in Greenwood, where it crushes soybeans and extracts the oil, was “probably not the, you know, most stable operation that we’ve run across.” He said that the company’s biodiesel operation at the plant had been shut down since last summer. He described production as “erratic” and said the “financial books and records of the company were scattered and, you know, a little tough to work through.”
Gerrard said that there were “15 or so” potential buyers looking at buying all or parts of the business.
He described the interest as “considerable” in the storage facilities at Sidon and Minter City but “tempered” in the Greenwood processing plant.
- Contact Tim Kalich at 662-581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com
