Illinois Family Farms Update….

As most of you know, In October Tricky Ricky filed chapter 11 on his leasing company. Then in November he filed chapter 11 with the main company. Here is a link to all of the court documents to date for both cases.

 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/54219650/ILLFF/ILLFF%20Bankrupcy.zip

I will try to keep this link updated anytime there are any documents worth updating. The best ones as of now are in the ILLFF folder Item #’s 29 &30. There are lots of claims against all kinds of companies on Delhi road. This is the same road as Agrisolutions & Family Farms. It looks like it costs a lot to be a member of a family farms team. Item #27 is the bank requesting to foreclose on all real estate that was pledged as collateral for this company. (Only 10 acres of it was Ricky’s) The sad thing is that is father passed away in 2009 and he has lost everything his dad work his entire life for in just three years.

The records show 1.7 million in assets (of that 800k in unknown A/R) and over 31 million liabilities.

Is it even possible to lose that much in three years? There are many questions I have on the numbers that he is showing on these documents. He could have gone to Vegas and blew 30k every day for the last three years and not lost that much. Maybe Carlinville National Bank would have loaned him money for that also if it had been on his business plan……

They had a few more pieces than a typical operator.

It all adds up to.  Makes credit tighter for a multitude of things in their area and could close other businesses that are needed in the communities that they defaulted in.

Trollerbk.com sends updates everytime there is a filing. It takes no time to keep this link updated. It's well worth 40 buck a month to keep informed, when it has to do with my business.

It is my business because I used to be a partner with this SOB. My name gets associated with him all of the time, so I love watching him go down.

If you think this is such a waste of time, why did you download the file.

 

Most of the landowners that did not get paid were in 2009 & 2010 crop years. In 2011 he had no cash, so he sub rented all acres out to other family farms teams. These teams paid the rents, so no one got shorted this year to my knowledge. This appears to be his plan for next year also. All of the ground is sitting idle with no fall work done. I would hope that the bankruptcy court would treat these as assets and give them to a creditor.

His big thing on writing leases is to do a changeup on the wording for termination dates and that the leases are auto renewing. The standard around here is that the ending date is 02/28 and the termination must be served 6 months prior to this date. Almost every lease he does has different dates. He may say the ending date is 12/31 and he needs to be notified 7 months prior to that date. This would mean that he would need to be notified by 05/31 or he the right to farm the ground next year. This fall he had many owners trying to get out of leases, even ones that were expiring. He then explained to them that they had not notified him in time, so he gets the farm for one more year.

I would think that most land owners will be trying to find new tenants as soon as they can get away from him. He is trying to make $45 per acre sub renting these farms out. Why would any land owner want a middle man for? They would have no control who actually farms their ground. Rick could change sub renters each year. What if the sub renter does not pay up? Rick has no assets to then pay the actual owner. On top of that he pays too much for the ground in the first place. Who would be dumb enough to pay $45 on top of the high rents he has locked in? What a mess….

It's not gossip.  It's not speculation.  It's fact.

Don't get me wrong...not disputing anything with you here.

The only gossip here, is the speculation from others as to where the money all dissapeared to, and it's pretty obvious it is from poor massive farming practices and grain storage management.  That might be gossip...maybe he did blow it in Vegas.

So is Rick working at the local big box store now or what does he do for family income?  Surely he wants to maintain his intgerity and high moral standards and wants to go to his grave owing no man anything, so will work feverishly paying off all his debts.

Yeah, there's nothing quite so much fun as someone you've been in business with filing bankruptcy and not giving you a heads-up that it may be coming.  Such a heart-warming and enlightening experience. *****   Well, it's enlightening any way.   That which does not kill you (or cause you to kill someone else) makes you stronger. 

that takes a lot of effort to spend and lose that kind of money in 3 years.

A few thoughts here:

1. While it's completely legitimate to discuss any lessons that might be learned from ILLFF's issues, it's probably best to avoid the opinion of a former business partner with an axe to grind.  It's like asking an ex-wife her thoughts about her former husband after a nasty divorce...you won't get the whole story.
2. Killam's links are fine, but he's also using the forum to attack someone who has never publicly defended himself.  If the shoe were on the other foot, would Killam be so casual about name-calling and spreading local gossip?
   
   
3. If Killam is truly hoping to recoup anything from his former business partnership, is it advisable to poison the well and publicly stir the pot while bankruptcy proceedings are ongoing?  Anyhow, it doesn't take much of a man to trash-talk on the internet.
   
   
4. If Killam got hoodwinked by "Tricky Ricky" into a partnership, does he now oppose the tactics the business was using during their time together (big cash renting, heavy debt leveraging, lots of equipment, etc.)?  If Rosentreter was such a despicable shyster, why was Killam in business with him?  Money problems of his own?  Bandwagon-hopping to the next big thing?  I'd love to hear the other side of that story.  Either Killam didn't do his due diligence, ignored the warning signs due to need or greed, or simply wanted to make more money.  None of those reflect particularly well.
   
   
5. Killam seems to be happy to share specific information.  Is it his business to spread what might in fact be confidential information, such as possibly privately-agreed-upon custom rates?

Illini guy

LIke you, I don't find the "jealousy" accusation being thrown quite so often in post replies towards those questioning the motives or longevity of operations such as the now defunct ILFF, etal. For the past 2-3 yrs here on NAT, it was often thrown at those who questioned the "how" of such mega-operations, and mostly by those far remoted from the C IL area. Those same questioners are now pointing out that they do understand....and understand as they suspected. Nowhere do I see "jealous" any longer in the replies. I personally didn't think anyone was ever jealous....just cynical, and now apparently rightly so.

Bankruptcy is a federal case; I hope the trustee digs into some of these records. I can’t help but looking at the statement under every page that requires his signature.

 “Penalty for making a false statement or concealing property: Fine of up to $500,000 or imprisonment for up to 5 years or both. 18 U.S.C. §§ 152 and 3571.”

The amount you are talking about is about what he charged the farm for grain storage. It was around from .20 to .30 cents per bushel, no matter if it was filled or not. He has around 3 million bushels storage plus 800k in two erected bins that he could not complete since 2009. This is what it took to make his payments. We went round and round about this figure. The problem is that he collected this amount of money and it does not appear that he paid the bank note off with any of it. It also appears that he did not pay his mom and brother rent for their farms and bins, but he took his. There are lots and lots of problems with all of these numbers.