GNP payouts may be recalled Move would level field for creditors

BANGOR – Hundreds of companies nationwide may have to send back $46.6 million in total payments they received from Great Northern Paper Inc. in the 90 days before the papermaker filed for bankruptcy.

In the meantime, Timothy Morgan, Great Northern’s former chief financial officer, on Thursday questioned whether the $46.6 million in payments was accurate. The total was included in statements filed in bankruptcy court this week. These statements give the first public look at some of Great Northern’s affairs since privately held Inexcon of Maine purchased the company more than three years ago.

Morgan, in a telephone interview Thursday from his home in Wisconsin, said the statements contain errors.

“A lot of the numbers are inaccurate,” Morgan said.

So far, none of the companies that was paid the $46.6 million has been asked to send the money back. According to attorneys, it’s too early in Great Northern’s bankruptcy case to decide whether any or all of the companies will be mailed “send back” notices.

Among other money paid out by Great Northern in the three months before bankruptcy was $300,000 in total bonuses to Morgan and Eldon Doody, the former company president, according to the court documents. The documents say Morgan received a total of $200,000 and Doody received $100,000. Morgan received $50,000 at the end of October and November, and $100,000 at the end of December, a week after GNP’s board of directors voted to pursue bankruptcy. Doody received $50,000 in October and November and left the company in December.

Morgan and Doody said the bonuses were offered to them as part of employment contracts they signed when parent company Inexcon Maine purchased Great Northern more than three years ago.

“It was not my decision,” said Morgan.

“I don’t know if I’d call it a bonus,” said Doody. “In hindsight, I truly regret it existed.”

According to bankruptcy law, send back notices could be mailed to try to collect money into a pool, and spread it out to all creditors based on an equitable basis.

Ironically, Great Northern, under its new status as a bankrupt company, could send “request for repayment” notices to one or all of the companies that it sent money in the past few months. The move would be part of its effort under the bankruptcy law to be equitable to all creditors, or it could be done in response to someone questioning why some businesses received money and others did not.

Creditors that have been affected by other bankruptcies have nicknamed the send back action “bankruptcy blackmail” because if they dispute or fight the notice, they could face a lawsuit. Any lawsuit or settlement would go before the bankruptcy judge.

For companies that received only partial payment in those 90 days and are awaiting the balance, a request for repayment notice stings, said Jay Geller, a Portland attorney representing Great Northern’s official creditors committee.

In the Great Northern case, Geller said he could be one of many people asking Great Northern whether payment preference was given to some companies or even corporate insiders in the months before the Jan. 9 bankruptcy filing. No decision has been made yet, he said.

“The number that went out was tremendous,” said Geller about Great Northern’s payment transactions. “If you were one of the creditors who didn’t get singled out to be paid, how would you feel?”

But, he added, for people who have to send the money back, “I can understand why [they] would call it blackmail. It adds salt to the wound.”

Great Northern’s creditors are encouraged to attend an informational meeting at 11 a.m. Friday, March 14, in the grand jury room on the second floor of the federal building in Bangor.

A listing of the bills that were paid was included in a “statement of affairs” submitted by Great Northern’s attorneys to the bankruptcy court earlier this week. Other attorneys contacted in the past few days said they needed some time to process the more than 150 pages of financial transactions given to the court.

The statements do not list all of the bankrupt company’s affairs in the past three years, but Great Northern was not required to supply it to the court, either. The company filled out standard bankruptcy forms and most of those required an accounting of transactions that were made in the 90 days before the bankruptcy filing.

Great Northern stated it has assets of about $198 million and liabilities of $121 million.

Morgan, the former chief financial officer of Great Northern, is questioning the accuracy of the statements that were compiled by a financial firm hired in early February. Morgan lost his post in February after the court approved a new management team earlier in the month.

He said the errors include wrong numbers for some of the financial transactions, including the sale of the power system, incorrect payment amounts, the wrong names of companies to whom wire transfers were sent, and incorrect addresses for creditors, suppliers and employees.

Richard Mikels, a Boston attorney representing Great Northern, said the documents were compiled in a short period of time by a “reputable” financial consulting firm. He said there are two errors on a summary page, but other than a few typographical errors throughout the remaining pages, the documents are accurate. The errors, he said, would be corrected.