Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Do you like auctions?
If so, you might like some of the auctions being conducted for the FDIC to liquidate the "other assets" acquired when the FDIC closes a bank. Much of it is mundane office furniture and equipment and such, but occasionally something special comes along.
The financial crisis that popped the real estate bubble and pushed U.S. bank failures to a 17-year high landed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. a rapper’s tour bus that reeked of marijuana.Hey, you never know what will go on the block.
“It smelled so bad of pot after one tour that they had to completely pull out most of the interior and replace it,” said Jerry Jenkins, who sold the bus at Penny Worley Auctioneers after the FDIC acquired it in the collapse of an Atlanta bank. “By the time we got it, it was almost brand-new.”...
..People get what we call auction frenzy,” Jenkins said. “We don’t want to give them a week to think about it afterwards, so items usually have to be picked up within one day.”
Most come prepared. That was the case with the Ferrari, a 360 Spider F1 with 27,363 miles that sold earlier this year. The buyer paid $61,000 for a car that New Frontier Bank of Greeley, Colorado, had repossessed from an auto dealer that had defaulted on a loan. The buyer arrived on a red-eye flight, paid cash, and drove away, Jenkins said.
New Frontier, which cost the insurance fund $670 million, also left the FDIC with a 1,000-horsepower drag-racing Chevrolet pickup truck, and almost 1,000 milking cows. Sales from assets of other failed banks have included armored trucks, industrial equipment and Thomas H. Benton lithographs. The palm tree fetched $105.
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