P.C. Richard Bid Wins The Wiz Name
By TWICE Staff -- TWICE, 9/5/2003
Wilmington, Del. -- P.C. Richard & Son will pay $1.8 million for the rights to the name The Wiz as part of a U.S. Bankruptcy Court ruling earlier this week by Judge Mary Walrath.
According to a clerk of the court, the New York-based chain won the court-ordered auction for the name, trademarks and intellectual properties of the defunct retailer over several other bidders. These include Calif.-based distributor ITC Electronics, as well as New Jersey-based LTI Electronics, which was founded by former 6th Avenue Electronics City president Leon Temiz.
The Wiz filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March, after being sold to Gordon Brothers Group, a Boston-based retail liquidation firm. It had 17 stores in the greater New York market at the time of the filing. All locations have since closed. The Wiz closed 26 additional stores in 2002.
P.C. Richard will pay $1.6 million for the names and trademarks of The Wiz and $200,000 for customer lists, according to the court.
Temiz said he had previously bid $125,000 for the rights to the Wiz name, trademarks and other intellectual property and was awarded such rights on July 31. He said, however, that former owners of the Wiz and P.C. Richard complained to the Bankruptcy Court which resulted in a reopened bidding on August 28 in which P.C. Richards was the high bidder.
"There was a closed bidding and I won, but because the bankruptcy court wanted to get more money, the judge decided to reopen the bidding," said Temiz.
Temiz's company, LTI Electronics, recently purchased two former Wiz locations in Roxbury and Summerville, N.J. Those locations will open as planned, he said.
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