Winc Bankruptcy Stalking Horse Article Correction

We erred in our article of Dec 14 when we stated that WX Brands was the stalking horse to buy Winc, Inc. out of bankruptcy. That was incorrect and we regret the error.

 

We reached our erroneous conclusion by failing to do a more thorough examination of two LLCs in two different states with identical names: “Project Crush Acquisition Corp LLC.” A third LLC with a nearly identical name: “Project Crush-WX,” became our incorrect conclusion because we fell short by not reading more of the hundreds of pages of bankruptcy court filings.

 

According to a key bankruptcy court filing Project Crush Acquisition Corp LLC (Delaware), a newly created LLC corporation run by a Winc co-founder,  created by Mark Lynn who is a Winc co-founder and currently the CEO of the Amass Group is the actual stalking horse.

The Path To A Mistake

In our research, we first found a Colorado filing: “Project Crush Acquisition Corp LLC,” which had been filed by Krishna Shivdasani, Chief Strategy Officer of the Amass Group. Our phone call to Amass met with a dead end as did our email. The bankruptcy documents we had read so far stated that the correct LLC was a Delaware Corporation, so that ruled out the Colorado Amass/Lynn LLC.

 

Next, our nationwide search for the LLC did locate a Delaware corporation, but the record did not list any incorporator or other people associated with it.

 

At this point, our proper action would have been to dig back into the hundreds of pages contained in dozens of bankruptcy court filings.

 

Regrettably, we failed to do this, and instead broadened our search. That’s when we located “Project Crush-WX,” and committed our error: since the two Corporation searches were ruled out by incorrect assumptions, we compounded the error and concluded that we assumed that “Project Crush-WX,” this was the stalking horse.

 

We communicated our conclusion to multiple top-level wine executives in a position to be close to the Winc bankruptcy. But because of Non-Disclosure Agreements they had signed, none replied.

 

Based on all of the inadequate actions mentioned above, I wrote the article on December 13 and it was published December 14.

Anonymous Tip

In response to an anonymous tip received on the morning of December 14, we renewed efforts to determine if we had erred. Our email to Amass Group went un-returned, and we received the same inaccurate information from our sources. We returned to reading the voluminous court filings, but could not read them all. Finally, we looked at the filings at the Securities Exchange Commission and, at the bottom of the asset purchase agreement, confirmed that the Amass Group was, indeed, the stalking horse.

 

We truly regret our error. This is the first we have made in 10 years of publishing Wine Industry Insight and we pledge to do better from this point forward.

Stalking Horse Not The Last Word On Purchase

Amass Group has a leg up on the purchase, but the bankruptcy court has a process for other interested buyers to enter the bidding fray. Stay tuned.

A few relevant items

Continuing to look, Part 1

We did find a Delaware corporation, but no names were associated with it.