Brewbound Podcast: What Receivership Means for Modern Times

[00:00:00] Jessica Infante: Modern Times is likely headed for a receivership sale. What does it all mean? Stick around to find out more on The Brewbound Podcast. Hello and welcome to The Brewbound Podcast. My name is Justin Kendall and I am the editor The Brewbound and I am joined by Jessica Infante, the managing editor The Brewbound. Hello, Jess. Hi, how are you? I'm well. And we are also joined finally, by Zoe Licata. Welcome back.

[00:00:38] Modern Times: Thank you. I know I feel like I've been gone a million years.

[00:00:42] Jessica Infante: It does feel like it. Although, you know, we said that you weren't around last week, and then you end up leading the discussion with Funkytown. So there's some really great editing by me on that podcast.

[00:00:54] Modern Times: I know that's the like behind the scenes scheduling sometimes works for the podcast, but I'm back in real time now.

[00:01:04] Jessica Infante: Well, we've got a big guest this week. We've got Jack O'Connor, a partner with Sugar Felsenthal, Grais and Helsinger in Chicago. We're excited to have him here this week to discuss what it means to go through receivership, given the news with Modern Times. I've got a question for both of you. How much of the beer, hard seltzer, ready to drink can cocktails that I gave to each of you over the weekend, have you consumed? Oh boy. Trick question.

[00:01:35] Sugar Felsenthal: Um, I believe two cans have been opened.

[00:01:39] Jessica Infante: Did you crack that Pliny open?

[00:01:42] Sugar Felsenthal: Oh yes. The Pliny was opened. So two cans in a bottle.

[00:01:46] Jessica Infante: Nice.

[00:01:47] Sugar Felsenthal: I've never had it. Delightful.

[00:01:49] Modern Times: Really, really good. That is my next one. I haven't opened it yet. I did have Russian Rivers, the STS pills though, yeah, last night with my dinner and it was lovely. That and a couple non-alcoholics I consumed, but it didn't make a dent in my collection yet.

[00:02:07] Jessica Infante: No Darties to take care of all that yet?

[00:02:10] Modern Times: No, not yet. Give it a couple more weeks.

[00:02:14] Jessica Infante: Well, a huge thank you to Russian River for sending out Pliny the Younger, STS, and a few other things to us. And I think I actually still owe you both meat sticks. So apologies for not getting you the Pliny meat sticks that you're due, but another day.

[00:02:32] Modern Times: Another day.

[00:02:34] Jessica Infante: Yeah. So we talk a lot about travel, and we are all going to be traveling very soon. We're going to be headed to the Craft Brewers Conference in Minneapolis in early May, May 2nd through the 5th. I believe that's the CBC. I'm going out a day early just so we can get prepared for our Brew Talks event, which is coming up on May 2nd, Monday, May 2nd, 1 to 4 p.m. We've got a full lineup of speakers now. I think we're all set to reveal them. We're going to be talking NFTs and crypto with Curtis Cummings from Switchyard Brewing. He's one of the founders of that brewery in Indiana. We're also going to be having Daniel Paul Wellendorf, one of the co-owners of Modest Brewing on that panel, talking about NFT beers. We've got another panel that's going to discuss programs for helping underserved breweries and that will include Jennifer Glanville from Boston Beer Company talking about brewing the American dream as well as one of the brewing the American dream winners that was Chula Vista Breweries founders Dolly Parker, Tim Parker, they're going to join us and we're also going to have Mike Persick from Target. He is the senior director of divisional merchandising manager for adult beverages And he's going to talk about their own program for helping upstart companies get on their store shelves as well as everything else to do with getting into big box retail. Finally, we're going to discuss residency programs and Haymarket Brewing in Chicago ran a fabulous one that invited black owned breweries and to basically take over their place for the month. We're going to have Michael Gemma from Haymarket discussing that program, as well as Jamal Johnson from Moore's Brewing Company, one of the co-founders of Moore's. He will be on that panel. Maybe one other member of Moore's will be there. And we'll have Samuel Ross, a brewer with Goose Island, who Worked on a collaboration ale based out of Haymarket, Harold's 83 Honey Ale. So lots to discuss. We'd love for all of you to join us at Brew Talks this year. Tickets are on sale now The Brewbound.com. Some of the proceeds go to the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild. And I'm out of breath.

[00:04:58] Sugar Felsenthal: Yeah, I mean, that's what happens when you talk for a super long time like you just did. It's going to be a good day. I'm excited. We've got a venue, which is exciting.

[00:05:06] Jessica Infante: That is the part that I forgot. And we haven't had a venue for so long that I forgot to mention that we had a venue. And where are we going to be?

[00:05:15] Sugar Felsenthal: We are going to be at Carew Atrium at Target Field where the Minnesota Twins play. It's walking distance to the Convention Center. Really nice ballpark. I stopped there to catch like three innings of a game during homebrew con of 2018 before it was rained out. But yeah, it'll be really cool. I'm excited. It's really different. And convenient and it should be a good time. I'm excited.

[00:05:39] Jessica Infante: Yeah, we should go on a ballpark tour. We should just do brew talks at all the ballparks this year.

[00:05:46] Sugar Felsenthal: I mean, our signed on presenting sponsor does have some connections to a few of the teams in the Major League Baseball Confederation.

[00:05:58] Jessica Infante: Major League Baseball Confederation?

[00:06:03] Sugar Felsenthal: I don't know. I said the before I said major, and then I felt like I just had to keep going, add another noun.

[00:06:10] Jessica Infante: That's all I do is I feel like I got to keep going. And Zoe is going to keep us going here talking about CBC because now we know a little bit more in depth on the entrance requirements. So tell us all about what we're going to have to do to get into this year's CBC, Zoe.

[00:06:27] Modern Times: Yes, so as anyone who's registered for CBC knows already, you will have to show either proof of a full COVID-19 vaccination or a negative COVID test to enter. And the BA has partnered with CLEAR to make the process of showing your proof of vaccination or negative test potentially faster and easier, so you can upload your proof onto the Clear app and just scan it when you get there, and it's hopefully going to expedite the process. They will also accept physical or digital proof if you do not want to use the app. I should note though, if you're just going to show a photo of your vaccination card, you have to have a photo of the front and the back, which isn't always the case everywhere, so good to know. And fully vaccinated is they're saying in line with the CDC is it's just either one shot of Johnson Johnson or two of Pfizer or Moderna. So that does not have to include the booster shot.

[00:07:31] Jessica Infante: Nice. I'm very excited for Jess, who is the only person that I know with clear.

[00:07:37] Sugar Felsenthal: Oh, well, that's true. I mean, the airplane access thing is different, but it's the same company. And I've only ever gotten to use it once because it's not everywhere.

[00:07:48] Modern Times: Yeah, their whole thing is like being able to use ID other than your physical ID. So like eye scans and things. So they're similar technology of uploading proof of ID. You have to take a selfie when you put in all your health information for this.

[00:08:04] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Well, that's what's up with CBC, but I feel like we've just turned into, like, legal news of late. And on Friday morning, I think that's when we found out that Stone is now getting sued as part of its own trademark infringement case, and that's being brought by Sycamore Brewing, a brewery that we're quite familiar with. Jess, I believe you covered that, right?

[00:08:32] Sugar Felsenthal: Yeah, so Charlotte, North Carolina headquartered Sycamore Brewing has filed its own trademark infringement lawsuit against Stone. Sycamore for their Juiciness IPA, they've trademarked the tagline, keep it juicy. They applied for this a few years ago, they got it, it's registered with the US Patent and Trademark Office. And for Stone's Hazy IPA, they too were using the phrase, keep it juicy online and on their packaging. And it's just interesting because Stone has filed more than a hundred trademark defenses since 2018. So here they are doing the same thing that they always accuse all of these other people of doing against them. And their trademark defense is, you'll notice, and we've talked about this, there's basically anybody in beverage alcohol that has the word Stone in their name or in a product name or anything that they're trying to trademark, Stone will challenge. So just a simple search would have revealed that Sycamore Brewing owns the trademark for Keep It Juicy, but nobody at Stone did that, it seems. I asked Joan for comment. Yeah, I asked them for comment and they said something along the lines of, can't really say much because this is pending, but brought to our attention just now, if it turns out to be the case, you know, we really honor the defensive trademarks, so we'll do whatever. And people on Twitter had pointed out that they, at some point on Friday, took the keep it juicy off the page on their site for hazy IPA. So they seem to be in the process of making amends.

[00:10:08] Jessica Infante: You mentioned those hundred or so lawsuits that Stone had filed against others. What was the term that Sycamore used in the lawsuit to refer to Stone? I think it was a trademark bully. Is that the term?

[00:10:23] Sugar Felsenthal: Yes, that is the term, but that's a real term that the Trademark Office uses.

[00:10:27] Jessica Infante: Oh, really?

[00:10:28] Sugar Felsenthal: And defined. Yeah. It's not like they just came up with it.

[00:10:32] Jessica Infante: Damn. Well, good job, Trademark Office.

[00:10:35] Sugar Felsenthal: And it's not necessarily a bunch of lawsuits. Those are just all defenses or oppositions to other trademarks. So, you know, like if you file an application to trademark something, then, you know, anybody that, that offends that, you know, disagrees with, they're allowed to complain. So that's what Stone has done on those 100 plus occasions.

[00:10:57] Jessica Infante: Well, speaking of stone, they're not quite done with Molson Coors either. Last week, they filed for a permanent injunction against Molson Coors to cease production and distribution of the infringing Keystoneite cans that The jury awarded Stone $56 million over in that trademark infringement lawsuit. So this is the next step of where that case is going. And we already know from Molson Coors and their chief legal officer, or I can't remember whatever title was, but their their chief legal person mentioned that they're already looking at a packaging refresh for Keystone Light, which, OK, sure, why not?

[00:11:40] Sugar Felsenthal: Yeah, I mean, that's something you should probably do every couple of years anyway, so it's just time.

[00:11:46] Jessica Infante: Yeah, so lots of spiciness in that story, but we don't have to go down that route because I feel like we've covered that.

[00:11:53] Sugar Felsenthal: Extensively.

[00:11:54] Jessica Infante: Yeah, extensively.

[00:11:56] Sugar Felsenthal: But do you want to hear the definition of a trademark bully? Yes.

[00:11:59] Jessica Infante: Yes, always.

[00:12:01] Sugar Felsenthal: All right. The United States Patent and Trademark Office defines a trademark bully as quote, a trademark owner that uses its trademark rights to harass and intimidate another business beyond what the law might be reasonably interpreted to allow a real term.

[00:12:17] Jessica Infante: The more you know.

[00:12:18] Sugar Felsenthal: Right.

[00:12:21] Jessica Infante: So Zoe, let's hit some positive news, or at least we hope this is going to be some positive news, because it looks like there may be some more Restaurant Revitalization Fund money out there.

[00:12:35] Modern Times: Yeah, we've been keeping tabs on this and it seemed like everyone was kind of pessimistic about any more funding coming to the Restaurant Revitalization Fund or RRF. And then while I was at the Craft Brewer Association's Members Conference last week, Bob Pease from the B.A. kind of hinted at this thing had new life. And he was right. So the House of Representatives have officially passed an additional $42 billion in funding for bars and restaurants through this fund. It still has to go to the Senate. And then, of course, Joe Biden has to sign it into law. But it is the first positive step for what everyone thought was kind of dead relief.

[00:13:23] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I mean, this is zombie coming out of the grave. A good zombie, though, with money.

[00:13:29] Modern Times: Yeah. And when they originally put this legislation in, they were originally asking for about $60 billion in additional funding. So it's a little bit less than what they asked for, but they're happy to at least get something through. Right.

[00:13:44] Sugar Felsenthal: Some sad news reverberating through the beer industry today is that Constellation Brands beer division chairman Paul Hederich has passed away yesterday, Sunday, April 10th at the age of 59, which is really young, like really, really young. Paul really oversaw the growth of Constellation Brands' really impressive beer portfolio, which includes popular Mexican imports, Modelo, Corona, and Pacifico. But he'd been with the company for many, many years, 30 plus years, and started his career in Bevalken Wine. We knew Paul had been having some health issues, and earlier this year transitioned from the role of beer division president to beer division chairman. And in that chairman role, he was overseeing operations at the Mexico facilities. But today, beer division president Jim Saviat sent a note to wholesalers announcing that Paul had passed. So sad news. He said some really nice things about Paul. So I'll just quote the memo that he sent out. Jim wrote, there are a few individuals who have had the level of impact on our company that Paul had. He played an integral role in just about every major decision made at our company over the past 30 plus years. And as you know, spent the last six years leading our beer business through a period of tremendous growth. His intellect, financial acumen, and deep understanding of our industry were unparalleled. We will be forever grateful to Paul for his passion and dedication in helping establish Constellation as major force within the beverage alcohol industry. Huge condolences to everybody at Constellation and Paul's family. Really sad news. Somebody who certainly had an enormous impact on the industry overall.

[00:15:18] Jessica Infante: Yeah.

[00:15:18] Sugar Felsenthal: And will be missed.

[00:15:19] Jessica Infante: Yeah, we can only echo that. And a final story for this week, a huge send off to Firestone Walker, Chief Sales Officer, David Macon, who stepped down after eight years in that role. He helped build the 805 brand and the Mindhaze brand. Guy is a road warrior and just a good friend The Brewbound. So just hats off to David Macon.

[00:15:43] Sugar Felsenthal: And just a really fucking nice person. I don't know that he'd appreciate my use of profanity.

[00:15:49] Jessica Infante: One for the swear jar.

[00:15:51] Sugar Felsenthal: I just feel very strongly that David Macon is a delightful human being.

[00:15:55] Jessica Infante: I think we all feel that way. Or at least I do.

[00:15:58] Modern Times: I don't want to speak for Zoe, but... No, lovely, lovely human.

[00:16:02] Jessica Infante: Yes. Good dude. So we'll be checking in with him on where he's headed next. Yeah, that's the news for this week. And so we're gonna hop to our featured interview this week, we are going to discuss Modern Times, which The company announced last week that they are entering into a court appointed receivership process, which will likely end with the company being sold as a going concern, which means the business would continue on. uninterrupted, pretty much. The alternative being they might be sold piecemeal, which isn't a great outcome for anyone. But we've got a guest here this week to discuss. His name is Jack O'Connor. He's a partner with Sugar Felsenthal, Grace, and Helsinger in Chicago and New York. So stick around for that interview. Over the last couple of months, Modern Times has painted the picture of a company in financial peril, with past decisions aimed at accelerating growth in California colliding with a pandemic that shut down taprooms in one of the most locked down states in the union. In recent years, Modern Times had simultaneously tried to open multiple taprooms in several major California markets and one in Portland, Oregon. In the process, some likened to a boat race. And now the company finds itself on the edge of entering receivership at the behest of its top lender, California Bank and Trust, which the company took out three loans from in 2019 that totaled nearly $13 million. Here today to discuss what receivership will mean is Jack O'Connor, a partner with Sugar Felsenthal, Grace, and Helsinger in Chicago. Thanks for joining us, Jack. Yeah, thanks for having me. We're psyched to have you here because I got to admit, I don't know too much about receivership. So that's why you're here. What does receivership mean for a business?

[00:18:06] Brewbound Podcast: So to get into that, receivership is basically a court-appointed asset management. Generally speaking, if you see two parties in litigation, often a plaintiff, like a bank, will file either a petition or a motion to have a receiver appointed, and then the receiver takes possession and works for the court. It doesn't work for the bank or whoever asked that the receiver be put in place. It works for the judge, basically. There's a recommendation that's made. In this case, a bank would say, we like person X over here, and judge may say, person X makes sense to me, appoints the receiver, and then that receiver is in charge of managing the assets, so basically has financial control over a company in this case.

[00:18:47] Jessica Infante: Does this essentially indicate that the lender has lost faith in the current management to sort of steer the ship?

[00:18:57] Brewbound Podcast: I wouldn't say it's a complete vote of no confidence in management. I think more along the lines of, you know, banks are in the quote unquote getting paid business. They want to recoup the investment that they've made. In this case, I think that, you know, generally speaking, if you're looking to conduct a going concern sale, your bank is there being supportive, hopefully saying, like, this is a management team that can take us forward as long as we can find a buyer. What it does mean is that they don't necessarily trust the company to repay its loan or to make it whole on terms that it likes.

[00:19:27] Sugar Felsenthal: Jack, we've covered bankruptcy quite a bit within the craft beer industry, both, you know, Chapter 11, Chapter 7, all sorts of that, but receivership's a little different. So can you explain how receivership differs from bankruptcy?

[00:19:38] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, so I would say if you think of it in sort of the spectrum of different distress options available for or against the distressed business, this is a lender option. This is a creditor remedy. Receivership is, like I said, that if you have a litigant, a petition that the receiver be put in place, it's because they want to preserve the value of whatever asset that there's fighting on. So bankruptcy can be either a creditor's remedy in some instances, like a Chapter 7 liquidation where keys are handed over to a trustee. But generally speaking, bankruptcy as a debtor remedy, so a company that's in trouble, it's Chapter 11. And the biggest difference there is management stays in control and gets to run the day-to-day operations. There's nobody above them other than the bankruptcy court saying, this is how you should run the business day-to-day.

[00:20:28] Modern Times: this is new to us, receivership, we're not really hearing much about it. So how common is it that a lender is gonna choose that route?

[00:20:36] Brewbound Podcast: In terms of foreclosure type actions, it's very common, especially in real estate, where you'll see most often, I actually, the first job I had when I was a law student was to work in the, oh my gosh, I'm gonna get the division wrong. But basically we dealt with building violation, code violations for the city of Chicago. And we would see receivers in court daily because there was a receiver appointed to take care of a piece of property. So it's really common in that context. In terms of a going concerned business, it's not the most common thing you'll see. Oftentimes there'll be an asset sale under Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code as maybe a friendly foreclosure method. Appointment of a receiver is really not the most common thing you see outside of a commercial real estate context, in my experience at least.

[00:21:24] Sugar Felsenthal: How does this potentially change day-to-day operations at Modern Times? And maybe not necessarily Modern Times, but in general, what happens in the day-to-day goings on at a company in receivership?

[00:21:36] Brewbound Podcast: I'll give you the lawyerly answer. It depends. But generally speaking, my understanding or view on things is, you know, there's a competent management team in place. So they will probably be empowered to continue day to day operations. Right. There is most likely no significant change in how employees are viewing their day to day jobs, what they're doing. Management, though, has somebody looking after pocketbooks, right? They have a financial control person in place that is not an investor. It's the receiver. So receiver gets final say on basically what happens with cash because the receiver's in place to preserve the value of the business and effectively preserve value for creditors as well.

[00:22:19] Jessica Infante: Looking at the paths from here, I guess Modern Times laid out two ways that this could go. One as being sold as a going concern and the other being sold off as piecemeal. So can you sort of walk us through what each of those would mean?

[00:22:34] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, so I think that this probably makes some intuitive sense is, you know, going concern as a business that would be, you know, all of the assets of the business that are used to operate Modern Times has value. It probably has greater value than saying, okay, we'll sell off this line of coffee production equipment on, you know, piecemeal basis or this, you know, brewing facility. as maybe a turnkey operation in one specific location, whereas when we start to talk about value like enterprise value across the entire brand, across the entire business, that there's value that's greater than the sum of its parts there. Because a true turnkey operation for an operating brewery that has employees and people in place who have historical knowledge and understanding of how to operate the assets, as it were, is better than saying, hey, I have a brew house for sale. Who wants to buy it on a secondary market? Probably pennies on the dollar for what it was paid for initially. So that's the biggest difference when we're talking enterprise value versus liquidation value. Liquidation value is typically the kind of thing that you hear about an auction or bankruptcy auction or a fire sale or going out of business sale, those kinds of terms where you start to see massive discounts on individual pieces of assets or individual lots of things as opposed to here's a business that we can take moving forward that will return to profitability, return value to creditors and be able to operate into the future. Generally speaking, the chasm in terms of value is pretty large if you have a business that's capable of being operated as a growing concern.

[00:24:12] Modern Times: So something that complicates this potentially a little bit is that Modern Times has an employee stock option plan. And so about 30% of the company is owned by an ESOP. What does this mean for those workers within that ESOP?

[00:24:28] Brewbound Podcast: It's not great news for any equity owner, period, in a distressed situation like this, because it goes back to that difference between enterprise and liquidation value. Creditors stand at sort of the front of the line right now, right? They're saying, we lent money to this business. It owes us our money first out the gate, right? So if we're talking about the California Bank and Trust, who's the senior security lender here, they're going to get paid first. So if a sale doesn't manage to come up with at least as much money as necessary to pay off creditor claims, then equity is in trouble. So the ESOP is probably not in a great position today. If there's an ongoing concern sale, you could see some creative ways where some value could be recouped by those ESOP owners, but more likely than not, when we're talking about a distressed situation, equity is really sort of out of the money, for lack of a better word.

[00:25:22] Jessica Infante: in these situations, does anybody ever really get made whole?

[00:25:28] Brewbound Podcast: Yes. Secured creditors can certainly be made whole. It really depends on what kind of sale process is run and what kind of purchase price is paid for assets. You know, we've had clients who, who have run going out of business sales through a chapter 11 process. And, you know, we've made sure that the main creditors were made whole at the end of the day. That's why they would support a process like that. Again, as you get further and further down the chain, talking equity, we're talking vendors, things get tighter and tighter because there's less cash to go around. Is it impossible to see a successful 100 cent on the dollar restructuring? No. Is it likely? It really just depends on the nature of the business and what kind of sale process you can run.

[00:26:15] Sugar Felsenthal: About how long can this whole process take? What are we looking at here? A year, two, 18 months, two months? What's the average?

[00:26:25] Brewbound Podcast: It really depends on the familiarity and how quickly the receiver can get up to speed with things. I would say you'd probably be looking at at least six months, maybe in the neighborhood of nine months to a year. Again, I think that this is a situation, if you're talking specific to Modern Times, that they were already out in the market looking to sell their business. So maybe there are some interested buyers who are already out there awaiting the process out and maybe waiting to engage with the receiver if one's appointed. the sale process itself can go probably pretty quickly once the receiver's in place. And really, that's what probably most parties want to do, is to work with some speed.

[00:27:01] Sugar Felsenthal: What are the chances that the receiver will come from among, say, current leadership at the company right now? Is that a thing that happens?

[00:27:08] Brewbound Podcast: I think it would be very unlikely. Generally speaking, that would end up creating a potential conflict. And the bank as the sort of nominating party is probably gonna want, there are professional receivers, professional like asset recovery services, that they're out there saying like, this is what we do for a living, right? There are professionals who come in and they may not be lawyers, but they're people who are professionals sort of in my space. that do this for a living. So it's more likely that a sort of professional receiver would be appointed as opposed to existing management. It's probably not impossible, but unlikely.

[00:27:47] Jessica Infante: I know this is painting with a little bit of a broad stroke, but how do companies who have gone through a receivership process typically perform post-sale?

[00:27:59] Brewbound Podcast: I haven't looked at data on that. My sort of, I guess, knee-jerk reaction would be that it depends, again, it's, you know, you do a going concern sale, you maybe do some restructurings internally to reduce some inefficiencies within your systems, whatever it may be. If your buyer's willing to put, you know, cash up to keep the business running and keep it moving, I think that there's a high likelihood of success there. Buyers may be also interested because they perceive, at least coming in, that they're gonna get a discount in terms of any sort of purchase price that they would pay. So it really just depends. If we're talking in the context of commercial real estate, you got a good piece of property that you think you can rehab and rent out to new tenants, it's probably going to perform just fine. The question is really, what's your buyer going to want to do with it once they have the assets?

[00:28:50] Modern Times: For the current workers of Modern Times, is there anything they should be concerned about or anything that might be changing for them in the immediate future? Or they kind of just wait and see what changes?

[00:29:03] Brewbound Podcast: I think right now as an employee, it would be wait and see. Because all the indications are that there's a going concern sale, presumably Modern Times is going to be incentivized to keep its employees as happy as they can, because they want to be able to market their business and say, this is a turnkey operation to any prospective buyers. If things continue to move in a direction where it looks like liquidation is more likely, that's obviously when you'd want to start asking questions, maybe sending out resumes, who knows, but the sort of panic or mass exodus point is not one that I would see, you know, in the immediate future. I think it's still probably business as usual.

[00:29:45] Jessica Infante: Coming out of the pandemic, have you seen a lot of these receivership sales within the BevAlc industry?

[00:29:52] Brewbound Podcast: No, I mean, this is certainly the most high profile, but I haven't seen a ton. You know, when we've seen beverage companies or breweries going out of business, it's really the quiet sort of assignment for benefit of creditors or they just wind everything down and pay out claims as they can. I haven't seen a ton of litigious lender activity in terms of receiverships. But like I said, it's not out of the realm of possibility. It's just not something that I've personally seen.

[00:30:20] Jessica Infante: I feel like we've been here before with green flash and with smutty nose, but this, this feels different for whatever reason. And I, I can't describe why it just does feel a little bit different compared to those two processes.

[00:30:36] Sugar Felsenthal: Well, I mean, prior to this, like it would have seemed to any casual outside observer that things that Modern Times are really good, you know, they were popular, they had a really good reputation. And then, you know, in the last year, things started to change.

[00:30:50] Jessica Infante: Yeah.

[00:30:51] Sugar Felsenthal: Which is not to say that Green Flash and Smutty did not have good reputations or were not popular, but I think Monitor Times was in a different echelon.

[00:31:00] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Well, Jack, is there anything on this that we're not asking that we should be or we should be thinking about as someone who's well more into these type of situations than we are? So what should we be watching for? What are we not asking that we should be?

[00:31:16] Brewbound Podcast: I think you're asking the right questions. The thing that I think is probably unlikely, because it seems like this is at least the news reporting suggests that it's a pretty agreed to or amicable process that Modern Times isn't fighting. But oftentimes when I'm working with a troubled business, we're talking about what are our options, right? We talked about how receivership is a lender remedy. what are Modern Times as options? Does it want to file its own chapter 11? Does it want to, you know, fight the appointment of a receiver if it doesn't like who is being put in place? But I think in this situation, for right now at least, it looks like, you know, parties are negotiating what they can, where they can, and getting along for the most part. But it's definitely one of those things where you see a receiver appointed, You know, the first thing I'm thinking is, oh, I wonder if there might be a protective, you know, chapter 11 filing to preserve control. But it's like I said, the reporting at least suggests that that's not going to be the case. But it's always something to keep in the back of your mind. It's, you know, as a bankruptcy attorney, it's something I'm always thinking sort of at the top of mind. But that would be the one thing that I might look out for, but I wouldn't expect necessarily.

[00:32:28] Jessica Infante: Well, I guess we'll have to fire up our Pacer accounts and keep checking. So until then, thanks, man. We really appreciate you taking the time out to walk us through this, Jack.

[00:32:40] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, thank you.

[00:32:41] Jessica Infante: Yeah. And with that, we'll say that's our show for this week. Thanks to our one man audio team, Joe. Thanks to Jess and Zoe for being here. And thanks to all you for listening. We'll be back next week.