Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: bankruptcy, diamond

How Dennis Barger's Podcast Affected The Diamond Comics Bankruptcy

Did Dennis Barger and Jesse James' podcast with Bruce Ogilvie's guest affect the Diamond Comics bankruptcy situation directly?

When the Diamond Chapter 11 Bankruptcy auction at Raymond James offices was finalised, the winner was announced as Alliance Entertainment/AENT. Bruce Ogilvie, AENT chairman, was then invited onto a podcast with comic book retailers Dennis Barger and Jesse James after, apparently, watching my performance on the Beyond Wednesdays podcast the previous week, talking about the Diamond situation. He also talked about the company, how he came independently to the Diamond auction, why he bid what he did, how the auction went, and his plans for Diamond as the winner.

But then suddenly Diamond declared that the back-up bidders Universal Alliance and Pop Sparkle were the winners instead, and it descended into court reversals, lawsuits and accusations, which are still playing out now. AENT, after being confirmed as the winner by the courts, withdrew from buying Diamond a short time later, claiming fraud, and now is launching a lawsuit for costs.

Well, now we know some more people who were watching that podcast. As part of Diamond Comic Distributors' Chapter 11 bankruptcy, William Henrich and Robert Gorin were approved as co-Chief Restructuring Officers for Diamond. They have been filing charges and expenses, as has Lowenstein Sandler, co-counsel to the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors.

For example, in March, Lowenstein Sandler billed for listening to and reviewing the Alliance Entertainment/AENT CEO "Bruce Oglevie [sic] You Tube interview" with Dennis Barger and Jesse James, billing $2500 for that over two sessions.

William Henrich billed $684 for a meeting with fellow employees Saul Ewing and Getzler Henrich, which included "management/employee reaction to auction results" and the "winning bidder executive podcast notice and winning bidder communication protocol." The winning bidder is AENT, the executive is Bruce Ogilvie, and the podcast is Beyond Wednesdays.

He had another $256 for talking to Robert Gorin on "winning bidder podcast content, potential implications, and coordination of meeting of advisors to discuss ramifications."

Followed by billing $769 on a meeting with Raymond James, Saul Ewing and Getzler Henrich on the "winning bidder podcast content, potential implications, and next steps"

On the 31st of March, it was being described in another way, with William Henrich billing $769 for another meeting with Saul Ewing and Getzler Henrich "notification of winning bidder unapproved customer conversation" followed by another $342 for a discussion about "additional information concerning winning bidder unapproved customer conversation and formulation of communication related thereto".

Just from these examples alone, that's charging around five grand, talking about the podcast. I bet Dennis and Jesse didn't even make that in YouTube revenue… but it shows the impact they had.

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