Amerigo to emerge from receivership under new owner

Manager of West End restaurant will take over if court approves $6M buyout proposal

Email | Print By E. Thomas Wood

Meet the new boss, Amerigo. Same as the old boss, kinda.

Paul Schramkowski, manager of the Amerigo restaurant on West End and co-founder of Amerigo parent Vivid Restaurant Concepts, is joining with another manager from Vivid to purchase the bulk of the chain from the receiver who has been directing Vivid's affairs since January.

Receiver Kevin O'Halloran submitted documents in Nashville's U.S. District Court yesterday to bring about the sale of five restaurants to newly formed J.H.S. Holdings, led by Schramkowski and a fellow manager in Jackson, Miss. whose identity is not currently known.

The purchase price given in the filings is $6 million. The asset purchase agreement, available at this link, specifies that the receiver will solicit other bids for the restaurant, but that any competing bid must be at least $110,000 higher in order to win out. J.H.S. Holdings is to receive a break-up fee of $50,000 if another buyer prevails.

The transaction is subject to court approval. Yesterday's filings indicate that all parties to the receivership have agreed to it.

Included in the deal are Amerigo units in Nashville, Brentwood, Memphis and Ridgeland, Miss., a suburb of Jackson, as well as the Char restaurant in Jackson.

The Amerigo in Louisville, Ky. is not part of the deal. Attorney Barbara Holmes of Harwell Howard Hyne Gabbert & Manner, who filed the paperwork on behalf of O'Halloran, told NashvillePost.com that "the receiver is in discussions with the landlord in Louisville about various options" and that the disposition of the property has not yet been determined.

Also omitted are the remaining assets of the Knoxville Amerigo, which O'Halloran shuttered at the end of April.

Schramkowski and fellow Nashville restaurateur David Blackburn formed Vivid in late 2006 to buy the Amerigo chain. Vivid opened the Knoxville and Louisville units in 2007. The company fell behind in payments on $8.5 million in credit issued by General Electric Capital Corp. to finance the buyout, and GE sued late last year to force the company into receivership.

Holmes said Blackburn is not involved with J.H.S. Holdings.

O'Halloran, a turnaround expert with Newbridge Management LLC in Atlanta, has been in charge of the business since he was appointed in mid-January.

Financial data that he filed with the court today, available here, provide a glimpse of the business J.H.S. Holdings is acquiring. The five restaurants included in the deal posted total sales of $1.28 million in April and rang up $4.9 million from January 9 to April 30. They show a gross profit of about $44,000 for April and $622,000 for the January-April term.