Lake Cumberland Marine
 

Lake Cumberland Marine working through economic tsunami!
 

PRESS RELEASE

Marine Retailer Seeks Reorganization

Somerset, KY (July 19, 2009) – Lake Cumberland Marine, LLC , one of the World’s largest Marine retailers, reacted to ongoing floor plan and banking difficulties by filing a voluntary petition under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code on July 19, 2009, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court , Eastern District of Kentucky. Given the havoc that has gripped our global economy, banks have made a major exodus from the recreational lending arena at a staggering rate. The company’s cash position was severely affected by the loss of these credit lines. It is against this economic backdrop and unprecedented credit crisis that Lake Cumberland Marine has encountered a need to file for Chapter 11 reorganization. The company sees protection under the court petition as the most viable option to continue to confidently provide its customers with the same high level of sales and service that they have come to expect.


Incorporated in 1995, Lake Cumberland Marine, LLC quickly developed a niche for high quality watercraft and high performance boats. From 1995 through 2009, Lake Cumberland Marine, LLC has diversified its inventory to include even the most exotic powerboats and mega yachts. Through all the years of hard work, dedication to quality and exemplary customer service, Lake Cumberland Marine has developed a reputation for providing the highest quality to a vast clientele list all over the world.


Lake Cumberland Marine has retained L.S. Associates, a highly reputable management team from Louisville, KY, to develop a reorganization plan that will enable LCM to preserve its product offerings, current vendor and customer relationships. While working through this process, Randy and Von Hartmann, Managing Members, stated that the company’s clients can confidently anticipate a continued guarantee of quality products and superior sales and service as Lake Cumberland Marine, LLC moves forward. Sales and service operations remain at the same location, 105 Collins Avenue Somerset, KY. The company will be represented in these proceedings by Taft A. McKinstry of Fowler, Measel & Bell, LLP in Lexington, Kentucky.



Please contact Randy Hartmann if you have any questions. You may also want to visit our website at www.lakecumberlandmarine.com . As normal, we have a great selection of new and pre-owned powerboats.

Randy- sorry to hear about this. Good luck with your efforts to turn this around!

Chris

Best of luck with the reorgination Randy. This economic downturn won't last forever.

Robert

I also say good luck... Randy Hartman was great to deal with when I bought a boat off him.

Good luck on making it through this Randy/LCM.

If you look through the post history of the original thread starter, you can see he/she has a history of Geraldo type reporting.

Randy Sad news sorry to hear about this. Good luck to an economic recovery to turn this all around :ernaehrung004:

Sorry to hear this Randy, hope all will set itself up right. You run a great dealership and have always neem straight up in all our dealings.

GL

Randy and Vonn -hope all works out well for both of you. GARY

Randy, I hope this all works out. You were great to deal with.

Jason

Randy, great talking with you over the last few week. Good luck with the outcome.

Ben

I'm a little curious if you were interested in buying a boat from them recently or what motivated the broadcast?

No one's getting rich right now and it sure seems like a really aggressive move to just go out and post someone else's financial woes on a billboard the size of OSO... Especially when you don't often see any negative feedback regarding experiences with LCM.

Yes, it's a matter of public record but you wouldn't care if you weren't handing them money right?

I'm only trying to understand. The fact that this was just thrown up there with no explanation of dissatisfaction behind it really does not speak well of you.

Hey SD... Respectfully, I disagree with you being critical about Hacker's post. As you are well aware, this board is a public forum that was established for the exchange of thoughts, ideas and information regarding the performance boat industry. The unfortunate bankruptcy filing of LCM is very newsworthy as they are a major player in this industry. To suggest that Hacker's post has a hidden agenda is unfair. Randy Hartmann is one of the hardest working people in the boat business and if anyone can get through this it him. He's a great guy and I wish him luck.....

Randy has been good to me. Sorry to hear about the ch 11.
The original post is public info. Not great to gave it posted here, but it is relavant info. I'm glad he did post it.

It is certainly news worthy and the guy did not provide any opinion. This economy sucks, I have seen friends loose businesses all around me with another ready to close up any day. I feel lucky to have the little bit of work that I do. Best of luck to you LCM and I hope that this works our for you. Sad times indead.

Best of luck Randy, hopefully the economy will get back on it's feet quickly, and it will help get you back on track.
Dean

I don't think some of you guys understand the point. If you're going to be buying a boat or equipment or if you're just plain nosy you can look up the info very easily for your own satisfaction.

I still see no reason what so ever to post a link to LCM's bk on this site.

Not to mention that it further perpetuates the downward cycle that everyone is b_tching about including myself.

You have to remember that it's not as if he went out and posted news about some "personal" bk. He chose to further harm a HUGE dealer that has a lot at stake. So you can defend him all day as perhaps he is your friend and I am possibly not.

My only point is that his post seems disrespectful and displays a complete lack of etiquette... Just imagine being Randy right now. He's got enough landing on him and there's just no reason to make sure that every single person knows about it when they don't even have exposure.

I did not buy a boat but almost did. I just bought some small stuff and came to really like Randy after several conversations. If anyone on here was getting ready to buy from him this certainly killed that opportunity to go in the right direction.

Now what are the chances that Hacker is either a dealer or works for a competing dealer? If he is he won't have the spine to say so. LCM is NOT one of the hack shops we've all talked about. It's a respectable dealership which also happens to drive pricing in that region. So when you go posting negative things about it and help drive them out you basically hurt anyone who would be buying a boat this year or next or next .....

I still say it's bad etiquette but maybe I'm old school with just a little respect left in me or maybe you disagree.

You guys can come after me on this if you want but I won't call you out or fight with you. I'm simply saying this wasn't tastefully done.

Good luck on getting through this difficult time. I only know of a couple of businesses that aren't struggling to make it right now.

Roger

Good PPl over their guys. always helpful to me.. They will be fine.

Jeff

How does this effect a dealerships ability to take a boat in on trade where the owner owes money on the trade in. If banks are pulling floor plans and lines of credit I would think this is or will become an issue for any dealer.

To hard to answer. You don't know if they have lined up debtor in posession financing or if the banks have in fact pulled lines of credit if any. You also don't know how any debt is structured and if there are personal guaranties. Is the trade going lower what is owed overall in debt, if so you don't need a line? Was the filing due to a short(er) term working capital shortage?

In short you really have no way of knowing if there is any effect at all on how they do business. Chapter 11 is for reorganization, not a liquidation so you do have the ability to operate. If Chapter 11 killed every business that filed we would't have an airline left if this counry!

Hang in there dude!
 

Hope Lake Cumberland doesn't go the way Cope & McPhetres did out on the west coast:picard1:

True, but you must also remember that Chapter 11 is an admission of bankruptcy, or more liabilities than assets. It also freezes all vendor charges prior to the filing and puts secured lenders in front of all other obligations or debts. The bottom line is this is good information for anyone considering a purchase or service through the dealership. I would also check to be sure that any boats placed there for consignment sale are clearly defined as not part of their "assets" in any way. While proof of ownership will usually win out in the end, there can be lengthy delays if the sheriff moves in with a padlock. I also don't know what impact this might have on deposits for later delivery made pre-petition.


T2x

Apparently you haven't been following the new case law established by the Chrysler and GM bankruptcies!

However secured creditors should have priority the question becomes whom is secured and who was the first to file or perfect. Vendors can be secured if they properly perfect the lien.

Hope they are able to sucessfully negotiate the Chapter 11 and continue in business.

I don't think they established new case law. I believe the government simply trampled on the existing statutes. I doubt Obama will inject himself in this case as there probably aren't enough liberal labor interests involved.

True..true..

No reason to delete

I really hate this for these guys. I have been around them at numerous functions and they seem really cool. They also get involved in all local activities, and are big sponsors on our lake. Hang in guys and best of luck.

Why would posting this be disrespectful? It is public info.I live 1 hr from LCM and bought a boat from Shrogren my experience was that if they did not think you had a big checkbook then you were not worth thier time.Just because you dont flaunt it doesnt mean you dont have it.

I was treated well by them. I would buy a boat from LCM. I hope they come through it well. If they make it they will be stronger than ever.

Randy and his wife are real nice and very good people to buy from. I hope they pull out of this bad time not to many nice people in the boating world.


Anthony Smith

Just imagine being Randy right now. He's got enough landing on him and there's just no reason to make sure that every single person knows about it when they don't even have exposure.
:Whatever:Start spreading the word about it, I hope he rots in HELL!!!

LCM is NOT one of the hack shops we've all talked about. It's a respectable dealership which also happens to drive pricing in that region. So when you go posting negative things about it and help drive them out you basically hurt anyone who would be buying a boat this year or next or next .....
He didn't care when he sold me my 320 Baja and rigged it with the motors and drives, then one day the motor falls off the stringers because the motor mounts were lagged in the stringers with plastic wire ties stuffed in the holes because the stringers were rotten from the transom to the bulkhead.. And when I called him to tell him about the problem all he could do was curse and yell at me... Not very good display of customer satisfaction!!!!! I hope it cost him everything he's got!!!!!!!

It's really pretty simple...banks are pulling lines and cutting off credit at an unbelievable rate to all kinds of business...some is legit and others are hasty decisions to CUT exposure to help their own capital situations. If a business has a 50MM credit facility with 10MM drawn and all of a sudden cuts the facility to 10MM they "free up" capital...at a 10:1 coverage they all of a sudden have 4MM more in capital to utilize for something else...like to reserve against losses on other loans. All of a sudden a business who is not utilizing 80% of their line has a serious liquidity problem...because almost ALL of the other lenders are in the same boat. I saw compaines with 1Billion in cash on their balance sheets hitting their 400MM lines last fall...just to be sure that they had the facility and money before it was potentially cut even though they didn't need it. I have seen clients with large net worth's and almost no debt, literally unable to tap the credit markets for anything related to business. It's happening in residential, commercial, investement, etc. Last fall most of the banks themselves could not even go to the credit markets unless they paid "credit card" rates and that was IF they were lucky! This let to unprecedented action from the Fed to Inject ~700Billion into the institutions, FDIC guarantees on debt issuance, forced marrages, multi Trillion dollar asset purchase guarantees, etc. Many are just a victum of circumstance, say you utilized a local or regional bank for letter of credit and all of a sudden no one would buy the paper due to the "perceived" risk of the bank, all of a sudden your rate could go from ~2.00% to 17% because of the bank...not you! These "draws" then go against your own credit facility not the banks. Look at the subsidized facility's that the govt has to help States, Hospitals, Universities, etc sell debt..These are programs like build america bonds, even California had to pay ~7.5% to issue GO bonds and had trouble selling them! Liquidity is now everything and is why people were PAYING money to buy T-bills when rates went negative earlier this year. I could go on and on, but I think this illistrates the problem. There are no quick fixes and this will take YEARS to get flushed out. There was a sudden and sharp "re-pricing" of risk and the pendalum has swung to "return OF capital, not return ON capital...

If anyone can recover, Randy will. He is one of the hardest working people that I have ever met. His dealership is amazing and important to the area and our sport. He attempts to deliver nothing but first class products and service. Eric

Just to clarify, bankruptcy has nothing to do with more liabilities than assets. It simply means you have the inabliity to pay your creditors.

I bought my TG from Randy. Great company to deal with.
Best of luck to you!

It's unfortunate when an establishment like LCM goes under but the boats that we love will always be available somewhere somehow. We all know if your in the market for a 100K+ boat you are capable of going to the boat to inspect it yourself and/or have a representative do it for you. If LCM falls it really won't make a huge difference as to where we/you can purchase your next poker runner. As far as the service end of it LCM has no Mercury Certified techs in the shop and hasn't had since I left in May 2008.

I was on the inside of LCM for close to a year and know first hand how things operated, ethically and morally disturbing.

I'll leave it at that.

LCM files chapt 11
 

jest read on traidonily to day that lake cumberland marine filed chapter 11 . things are getting tighter and tighter . robbie

already been a thread on this. lets not beat a dead horse!!!

thanks did not know . robbie