Regency Stamp Auctions In St. Louis

I noticed that. I wonder if that is related to the aging stamp collecting population.

One would certainly assume that some or all of the staff was aware of the "Where's my money?" calls, but the Board may have not been given the full story by Kohls

typo fixed

One would think that someone would have noticed that there was $200 +/- in the bank and four million outstanding that was not being serviced. Who paid the utilities? The rent? Were there salaries? Office expenses. In late 2016 I dealt with a describer who must have been getting paid somehow. Nothing adds up.

Not understanding the question. When money came in, it was given to staff, rent etc. There was no cushion. But an employee may have still been getting his weekly check.

The BBB started receiving complaints of nonpayment in 2016. One person alleges that they received a rubber check in the amount of $20,000 from R-S which was intended to be consignment proceeds from the August 2016 auction. (See St Louis BBB website) It seems odd that only David and Penny were aware of financial shenanigans. Not impossible but very unlikely.

How does a lower level employee make the distinction between "financial shenanigans" and a struggling business? Does anyone who works for a company that hits a financially rough spot risk their job and start publicizing that their company is about to declare bankruptcy? Why would an employee intentionally damage their chances at getting a pay check by spreading self-fulfilling negative stories? How many employees have full access to the entire company's financial picture?

In my professional career, there were a number of times when I and other Board of Directors decided to forego our pay checks to pull off large financial capital expenditures and invest in our company. This is not uncommon for small companies who are trying to grow; this is certainly not a sign of imminent failure or pending doom. To think that lower level employees would start sounding public warnings is not reasonable and is a sure way to get them fired.

The only situation I can think of to put your job on the line would be if you had evidence of criminal activities.

And lets be perfectly clear here. There has not been a single piece of evidence that ANYTHING criminal has gone on with R-S. Making bad business decisions is NOT a crime. Several in this thread have to implied (or even stated) that some kind of criminal activity has gone on. Not only is this libel, it is unethical.

In this country you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. By all means someone should be looking closer at their books and making sure that nothing criminal has happened. But until some criminal activity has been proven, folks need to reconsider their empty accusations.
Don

See ------we already screwed up my posting and what I posted here ------Lets start again in what I posted . I posted about VICE-PRESIDENTS and DIRECTORS of Regency not the lowly employees who taken out the trash each day . I love these chat room screw ups .

Somebody took the phone calls from angry buyers and sellers who keep getting put-off . Nobody calls the switchboard operator and demands payment ,they want to talk to management like someone important . This is the people who knew the place was burning down and told the fire department they got everything getting better .These people were A.P.S. members and I didn't see them kicked in the butt .......who is protecting them ,we got our boogey man and everybody else is a virgin in the firm .

BOD members do NOT get involved with operations. Period. They are involved ONLY with strategic decisions. If strategic risks were taken then I agree that BOD members are responsible for those decisions. For example, the decisions to expand into auction categories other than stamps. But daily operational decisions have nothing to do with the BOD.

When a company is struggling financially, which virtually every one does at one time or the other, it is important to keep morale high and a positive attitude among all the employees. If any BOD member was being negative during this critical time I would have fired them on the spot. They are the leaders, either they believe in the company strategic direction or they need to be removed from the BOD.

If you are talking about operational executives, then they are like every other employee; the food on their tables is at risk if they spread negative stories. They would be risking their jobs, and possibly even their careers, if they spread negative stories. It simply is not reasonable to expect people to circulate negative stories about their employer whenever a financial rough spot is hit.
Don

"BOD members do not get involved with operations........." It really depends on the corporate entity and structure. My experience is solely in the non-profit field. Boards that do both governance and operations are very common there.

Yes, it is possible for a BOD member to also be an operational employee; in those cases they are supposed to wear TWO hats. But my original point stands; BOD members do NOT get involved in operational decisions. For example, it is quite normal that many BOD members might only see a high level financial report once a year.

And whenever a person is wearing their operational hat, they are caring about the food on their table. It makes no sense to go about spreading negative stories in financially stressed times (since doing so could increase the chance that it may no longer have a job and income).

No one should expect an employee to be bad mouth the company's financial health; it is just nuts to think that this should happen. It would be a judgement call (at best) unless they have firm evidence of criminal activity.
Don

$4 MILLION OWED

As of this August, Regency owed the Central Bank of St. Louis $4 million USD, which is secured by "company owned assets."

Yurchak said the bank "claims no security interest or other interest in consigned goods or proceeds from the sale of consigned goods," adding the bank's lawyer was unaware of a time when the bank ever exercised control over consigned goods.

Despite the effort to return the consigned goods or proceeds from the sale of consigned goods, Yurchak said the identification of what items remain or what proceeds of the sale remain are not readily available.

"Apparently Central Bank has been asking for this information from Regency for some time," she said. "Frankly, based upon Regency's failure to provide a timely inventory to Central Bank, I have concerns that a proper accounting will ever be completed."

Above Source References:

https://canadianstampnews.com/regen...xpelled-aps/

https://www.stamps.org/userfiles/fi...k-Letter.pdf

Don, while there may be no PROOF of criminal acts, in my OPINION, this whole business stinks like last week's diapers. Things don't add up. Frankly I don't buy the depiction of Kols as the innocent bumbling business operator just trying to make ends meet and do the best he can for the betterment of the hobby; it's just poor business practices, yadda yadda yadda.

It just doesn't wash.

Don - Former corporate officers/board members have spoken out recently in other venues about Kols financial woes and provided insight into some of the poor business decisions that drained the company of cash. Heads were not in the sand and it was not a case of board members seeing a high level financial snapshot at end of year.

The last corporate filing filing that recorded BOD members was in 2014. Subsequent filings show no BOD and no corporate officers other than the Kols, David and Penny.

Given that the Board was dissolved perhaps there really was nobody to see the rubber checks and negative communications from fleeced consigners.

Poor business decisions are one thing though and issuing bad checks is quite another.

Hi Dan,
I agree, it is pretty obvious that (at best) bad decisions were made. I also agree that these decision may have been strategic or they may have been operational. But bad decisions only means that someone made mistakes, not that someone is a criminal or can even be held legally liable. People make bad business decisions every day, I know I have made some. Has anyone in this thread never made a bad business decision?

I think it is fine that folks say, 'I think this guy was a horrible business person'. But to say that he did something criminal, or that there was some conspiracy without any evidence or trial is wrong.
Don

rogdcam,
I do not think that after the fact anyone would argue that good decisions were made; obviously bad decisions were made. Companies go out of business every day. Studebaker moved their operations out of USA in 1964 and built cars for 1965 and 1966 in Canada only. Why? because the only way they could survive was to get out from undeneath the pensions they owed in USA. They screwed over thousands of employees and ex-employees. This was absolutely ethically horrible but it was totally legal at that time.

So even if R-S did things that were ethically questionable, they still might not be illegal. If anyone has evidence that R-S did anything illegal, then they should contact the appropriate authorities. If folks have heartburn with the legal things that a company can do when going out of business; then they should fight to change the laws.
Don