Content area
Full Text
Private-equity lender claims ex-principals owe some $700,000
In a dispute centering on a Bruegger's Bagels drive-through in Bushnell's Basin, the private-equity lender that took control of Flour City Bagels LLC last year and put the chain into a Chapter 11 bankruptcy claims the chain's former principals, Kenneth Greene and Michael Borelli, owe Flour City Bagels more than $700,000.
Perinton-based Flour City Bagels runs 13 Bruegger's Bagels locations in the Rochester area, 13 around Albany and six in the Syracuse area. A Rochester-area facility bakes and supplies bagels to the chain.
Canal Mezzanine Partners II LP, a unit of Ohio-based Canal Holdings LLC, took control of Flour City Bagels last August. In early March of this year, it asked for court protection from creditors, stating it would try to sell or restructure the 32-store operation.
According to the chain's bankruptcy filing. Flour City Bagels employs more than 400 workers, including some 200 full-time employees, and brings in $22 million a year in revenue. Run by Greene and various partners since the early 1990s, it is among the largest of Texas-based franchisor Bruegger's Enterprises Inc.'s franchisees.
Schedules filed as part of the chain's Chapter 11 declare Flour City Bagels as of March 31 to have had assets totaling $2.9 million against liabilities of $14.3 million.
If it can sell the chain to a new operator, the Flour City Bagels eateries might not continue as Bruegger's franchises, the chain's new manager. Canal Holdings CEO Kevin Coyne, stated in a March 3 court filing.
Ousting Greene and Borelli and naming himself as the chain's sole manager were among Canal Mezzanine Partners' first acts after taking control of Flour City Bagels last August,...