Rogers photos rebid planned

Red Alert going for archive again

Red Alert Media Matrix, which never followed through on a $59 million offer this year to buy the newspaper and photo archives owned by John Rogers of North Little Rock, told a judge Tuesday that it will make another offer within a month.

Red Alert, an Atlanta investment group, made the first offer in January. But within a month, the lender working with Red Alert withdrew its commitment to finance a loan. Michael McAfee, the receiver in several lawsuits filed against Rogers and his companies, said at the time that Red Alert no longer had the funding to complete the deal.

But Rickey Hicks, a Little Rock attorney representing Red Alert, told Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza that Red Alert has been in "serious negotiations" to buy the archives.

The negotiations have been with Angelica Rogers, John Rogers' ex-wife; John Conner, who lent John Rogers almost $10 million; and others, Hicks said in an interview after the hearing.

"We have now hammered out pretty much all of the terms of our agreement this morning," Hicks said. "We only need now to reduce this to writing. We feel very confident that we can close this sale in about 30 days."

John Rogers has been sued at least 14 times since February 2014 in connection with his archive businesses. Rogers has estimated that he has more than 60 million photos from 50 newspapers.

Hicks didn't say how much Red Alert is offering.

"But the total value is probably going to be a lot more [than the original $59 million]," Hicks said.

Hicks indicated that Red Alert has been investigating the value of the Rogers archives since its January offer.

"We've looked at the appraisals, we've contacted some other experts and we are content that it certainly is valuable enough for us to go after," Hicks said.

Red Alert, whose parent firm is in the international security business, has some investors in the United States but more in the Netherlands, Hicks said.

An attorney for McAfee, the receiver, was reluctant to go along with Red Alert's new proposal because the firm's offer fell apart earlier this year.

"All we've heard are promises," said Andrew King, who represented McAfee.

But King acknowledged that McAfee is a neutral party in the case and that he would agree to the proposal if Piazza approved it.

Piazza approved the attempt for Red Alert to negotiate another deal to buy the Rogers archives.

During the hearing, Piazza approved three requests for default judgments brought by First Arkansas Bank & Trust of Jacksonville, which sued John Rogers and several of his businesses in November.

One default judgment of more than $15 million was granted against John Rogers' businesses, Sports Cards Plus Inc., Digital Stock Planet and Planet Giant. Piazza approved a second default judgment against defendants Bill Fulton, Dale Huizenga, Douglas Allen and Mark Theotikos. The third default judgment was granted against defendant Legends in Time.

Business on 04/15/2015

Upcoming Events