INDEPENDENCE, Kansas -- Three months after Titan Global Holdings closed on the purchase of Crescent Oil Co. and two months after Crescent Oil filed for bankruptcy protection, the oil company is operating under the guidance of Titan after president Phil Near and executive vice president Jon Viets were asked to resign late last month, and the sale of the company is imminent.
Bryan Chance, Titan's president and CEO, has been serving as president of Crescent Oil since March 31, according to sources close to the company, and the Kansas district of U.S. Bankruptcy Court authorized [image-nocss] auctioning "substantially all of the debtor's assets" on April 2.
Both Near and Viets' tenure with the company predates its purchase by Titan, announced last year and closed on Jan. 15, 2009. Viets, who represented Crescent in court through most of the bankruptcy proceedings, had no comment on the issue when contacted by CSP Daily News yesterday, other than confirming that he was "asked to resign" on March 31. Attempts to contact both Near and Chance were unsuccessful.
On April 2, bankruptcy Judge Robert Berger ordered the sale of Crescent Oil's assets, initially on June 1, but that date was later dropped and a new date has yet to be arranged.
Court documents show Crescent Oil has debts totaling between $50 million and $100 million. Its top creditors are listed as Shell/Equilon (owed $6.5 million), the Kansas Department of Revenue ($4.3 million), ConocoPhillips ($3.6 million), CHS Inc. ($915,000) and Apex Oil Co. ($540,000). The company operates about 50 c-stores.
Crescent Oil joins another Titan Global Holdings company, Blountville, Tenn.-based Appalachian Oil, as soon to be sold. Appalachian Oil, which was purchased by Titan in September 2007, filed for bankruptcy protection on February 9. This past week, a Tennessee bankruptcy judge put that company in the hands of an outside chief restructuring officerNRC Realty Advisors' Andy Weberbeginning the process of giving NRC the authority to sell the company and its 58 c-stores in Tennessee and Kentucky.
Richardson, Texas-based Titan Global Holdings is a diversified holding company with a portfolio of subsidiaries spanning consumer products, international telecommunications and energy resources and distribution.
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