GILROY
–– The only two bidders for the Indian Motorcycle Company who’ve
gone public might team up after the auction if one of them
wins.
Matrix Capital, fronted by Gilroy resident Rey Sotelo, and Bill
Melvin, a retail liquidator and motorcycle collector from Grand
Rapids, Mich., are both still in the running to buy Indian.
GILROY –– The only two bidders for the Indian Motorcycle Company who’ve gone public might team up after the auction if one of them wins.
Matrix Capital, fronted by Gilroy resident Rey Sotelo, and Bill Melvin, a retail liquidator and motorcycle collector from Grand Rapids, Mich., are both still in the running to buy Indian.
“We’ve thought of possibly partnering up with Bill, but we haven’t yet reached the right terms with which to consummate the (deal),” Sotelo said Friday.
“We had talks about that two weeks ago,” Melvin said. “It’s possible, but I really don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see who’s successful with their bid.”
Both bidders have a common goal of reopening the Indian factory/headquarters on Tenth Street and rehiring at least some of the 380 workers Indian laid off when it shut down without warning Sept. 19.
“If anybody but us gets it, I don’t think it’s going to stay in Gilroy,” Sotelo said.
Nevertheless, Melvin said, “To reopen the factory and continue production is a major undertaking.”
Their competition has thinned as some bidders have dropped out, Melvin said. Bidding is still intense enough, however, that auction officials won’t say when they expect a winning bid.
Chuck Klaus, an executive with the Credit Managers Association of California, declined Friday to predict when the auction would conclude but said it would probably not be done within the next few days. CMA is overseeing Indian’s liquidation and is now in the process of selling its trademarks – bought for $18 million in 1998 – and its factory.
Klaus said CMA will keep bidding open as long as there is still a possibility of driving the price up, as that’s what Indian hired them to do. A second and supposedly final round of bidding began more than a week-and-a-half ago.
Melvin said a confidentiality agreement he signed prevented him from naming which bidders have quit. Whether he even knows for sure who they are is uncertain; Sotelo said he and his partners haven’t been told who they’re bidding against, although they have some guesses.
Sotelo said Friday he and his partners were “still reassessing where we’re at and how far we’re going to take this.”
The proceeds from the asset sale will go to pay off Indian’s long list of creditors. Among these are its employees, represented by a class-action lawsuit filed by former Indian quality-control inspector Russel Frost. According to the suit, Indian violated state and federal law by not giving notice 60 days before the mass layoff.
