Givens Life Rafts Filed for Bankruptcy

[Nibiruwayne]

Sorry, nicor press fittings.

[Dansante85]

Update on Givens Marine Manufacturing bankruptcy. Seems the assets are being sold to Givens Marine Survival and they are continuing on in the same building and almost identical web site. I am one of the "unsecured creditors" who was suckered by Lorri Perrino into making a deposit on a raft in Dec 2011 and now I am out $1700. Diane Finkle, the lawyer overseeing the liquidation, informed me today that all assets had been consumed by the administrative costs and so there will be nothing for the unsecured creditors. Like that is a surprise. Word to the wise, stay away from anything with Givens Marine attached to it. Seems the Pirates of the Caribbean have a branch office in Rhode Island.

[hellosailor]

Sorry to hear that, Dan. Maybe it would be worthwhile to use one of the petition sites, and send Givens Marine the word that us little guys will simply do our best to promote a boycott of all their products, until they at least make an attempt to help out everyone who got screwed. i.e. at least offer new goods at or below COST in an effort to do something. An effort.

[Dansante85]

I agree with Hellosailor, spread the word to give Givens Marine a wide berth.

[ssMakai]

Dansante85 my sales agreement was with Givens Marine Survival, Diana Finkle gives me the impression that I should pursue Lorri Perrino as emails to her at Givens marine survival were still being answered in Jan 2012 indicating that delivery would occur on schedual.
Anyhow so far I have had no response from emails to their address and the phone goes to voice mail. See if your sales agreement was with marine survival or manufacturing. I have their bank details as supplied and I will be writing to that bank advising them of Givens default. Australian courts deal harshly with banks that support the activities of such organisations; what about US courts?

[hellosailor]

Makai,
US courts support the lopsided US bankruptcy system which screws unsecured creditors. However, if you had "writings" from someone indicating and assuring delivery, but that person could be proven to have already known a bankruptcy and no delivery were already depending, a criminal court (Disrict Attorney or Attorney General's offices) might rule those writings to be an intentional criminal fraud--and you might be able to pursue that.

I say "might" because I'm not an attorney, don't know the xact state laws there, and don't know exactly what you have in writing. You might want to pursue that avenue with the appropriate authorities. I would not suggest contacting Ms. Perrino about that without proper advice, as there's a fine line between threatening to prosecute someone, and extortion. And you wouldn't want to take any chances on that.

[chrisjs]

Personally, I was interested in buying a Givens raft a few years back until I caught wind of their lousy delivery and customer service reputation. I think they have been living on borrowed time for quite some while and I am guessing this debacle will finally kill them off, no matter what they are called!! Perhaps some reputable organization will acquire the rights to the Givens design, though I am not even sure that it is so unique at this time.

[JayCall]

Makai-unfortunately, you will be out your deposit absent the new company deciding, in the name of customer service, to follow through on prior orders. Quite frankly, that is unlikely.

A little research leads me to believe this is a pretty typical small business bankruptcy. There were no buyers for the assets of Givens Marine Manufacturing and there was little value in any assets fo the company. So, the owners of the orginal company formed a new company, Givens Marine Survival Company, made a bid, probably the only bid, on the assets (NOT the liabilities) of the old company and are now operating it. The little bit of research shows the old website still in use, the old address still in use by the new company. The corporate records I was able to access show the Perrino is a principle in the new company, Givens Marine Survival. So, new cmpany, same people, same product same management issues. Would you do business with them again?

The only purpose of this type of bankruptcy is to allow the owners to relieve themselves of debt. They put the old company into bankruptcy, get relief through the court from debt, form a new company and buy the assets, and get to start over again from scratch. This generally works where there are no competing buyers for the assets and where there are no major secured creditors with the will to force the bankruptcy court into ordering a Chapter 7, full dissolution and sale of assets.

The same thing happened with Genmar, the biggest Marine company. Irwin Jacobs put it into bankruptcy, got relief fron debt and bad brands, cherrypicked the strong brands and bought them back out of bankruptcy. Voila! Debt disappears!

Our legal system, of which I am a part, is a wonderful thing (note: sarcasm). Unless you gave Givens money.

[Keolakai1]

Well I wasn't going to settle for Lori not answering her e-mails and returning my calls. We had paid LORI...not the manufacturer. I found her home address...I found her husband's phone number and I blasted them with calls and letters...that did ZERO. Her and her husband, Frank, both gave is the run around.

So, I sent one last e-mail entitled "Time's Up" In it I stated that I was now going to the police and Federal Fraud Unit...

I received my product YESTERDAY!!!

Keep on them RI pirates!!!...and Good Luck

[chrisjs]

Good job!! Hopefully the same approach will work for others. I think I would check out future service options other than returning the raft to Tiverton!!!

[Curmudgeon]

LRSE (also in Tiverton) will service and certify Givens liferafts. Good news: their service is prompt and professional. Bad news: it's expensive as hell (but so is Givens).

[bartonman]

Little too early to tell exactly what the entity who purchased the assets of Givens will be calling themselves. I can tell you I know who made an offer of $20000 that beat my $15000 offer for the assets. It was two gentlemen that claimed they were investor shareholders of Givens Marine Manufacturing Inc. There names were Tom Swift (lawyer) and Kiri Humphrey's (venture capitalist). I objected to there being allowed to make an offer for the assets, but the judge allowed it anyway and gave them 3 hours to come up with the 10% certified funds deposit. They provided a bank check which the judge said was fine. Because there were two offers on the table for the assets, Diane Finkle requested to hold an auction between the parties in a side room of the court. I spoke to the judge during the hearing by telephone and also was called by Finkle to attend the auction. She stated, though Mr. Humphreys was bidding on his own behalf, he has the option to put the assets in the name of an entity of his choice. This made me feel like that had certainly already been determined. After her opening the assets up for auction, she said she had a bid for $20000 and ask would I like to make a bid. I replied, No. That seemed to catch her off guard. So the assets were sold to the two people who were involved with the company that sold rafts to many people (me included) and did not deliver them. So, they got the company back, and the debt is gone. I wanted to move the manufacturing to Virginia and breath life back into this excellent product. I'm sorry that did not happen, but this deal stunk from the beginning. Under the circumstances, I second the warning to current and future owners of the Givens liferafts. During our due diligence we were provided letters from the Coast Guard that stated Givens Marine Survival Inc. and the Manufacturing entity were suspended from servicing and manufacturing USCG approved liferafts. They apparently failed to follow procedures and the certified inspection company refused to audit them anymore for failure to correct violations and failure to pay them for services rendered. Until these serious circumstances are corrected I suggest you do your best to have a reputable service company handle the servicing of your rafts. If you have a USCG Approved raft, maybe you should give the CG a call for help in determining if you can get a service company other than Givens to service your raft. Givens didn't let anyone else service the rafts they manufactured. I purchased a 8 man raft at the boat show">Annapolis boat show in 2011 from Lori Perrino. In February of 2012 I sent my 10 man Givens liferaft to Givens for servicing. I told Lori I wanted them shipped together to save on shipping. That is when I was told the new raft I purchased was from a different company named Givens Marine Manufacturing inc. I told Lori she was the only person I ever talked too. She said she used to work for the "other" company, but was fired in January with no notice. Needless to say I never got my new raft I paid $6690 for. And after this attempt at acquiring the assets of Givens, I am greatly concerned about the 10 man raft Givens Marine Survival serviced for me at a cost of over $1500. The envelope that came with my raft stated the bottle still needed to be hydro'd. When I asked Lori about this she stated everything was fine and it was done. The record does not reflect those comments. As much as I hate to do this, I am going to have to open my liferaft to inspect there work. I don't want to put my families life in the hands of these people. When I open and inspect it, I will videotape the whole event. And if I can get a Coast Guard official to stand by and observe, I will. I am curious to see who pops up as the manufacturer of these rafts after the sale of assets. This was a tragedy that extends back to when the inventor Jim Givens lost control of his invention to the Perrino's. Jim Givens provided this world with the best raft in the world ( my opinion ) and if I ask anything, it would be to remember Jim Givens for the contributions he made to the industry which set the bar for the other liferaft manufacturers to provide safer liferafts. To set the record straight, I saw another poster was under the impression Frank was Lori's husband, actually, Frank is Lori's father. Leading up to the sale of the assets, I noticed Lori was trying to sell a lot of rafts via Craigslist and on eBay under the username lorianna125 and on another website she operates called liferaftsonsale.com | "Marine Survival Equipment Specialists". Lori's email is ltulloch125@gmail.com I thought she may have been attempting to raise money to make a bid on the assets. But that couldn't be true because, all the documents stated Givens Marine Survival would not compete with Givens Marine Manufacturing. And clearly these sales would be considered competing. And they wouldn't do something as unprofessional and underhanded as that. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? Oh I almost forgot, when we contacted the Tiverton tax assessors office concerning Givens Marine Survival Inc., they stated they have not paid taxes since 2008 and a man in the office overheard the conversation I was having with the lady in the office, and he said he went by the location personally and was told they do not operate that business there anymore. Though Givens Marine Survival Inc. is a corporation in good standing in Delaware, it is not registered in the state of Rhode Island. For a company who is "not in business" they sure got a lot of my money. They run many online type businesses from that same building, which is owned by Frank I also came across many phone numbers associated with them. Though this post is long, it is but a smidgen of the details of this event.

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Dansante85.

[Dansante85]

I wrote a complaint letter to the U.S. Attorney for R.I. in Providence outlining as much as I know about this sordid affair. I, like many of you, believe Lorri was doing her high pressure sales calls gathering our money ($1700 deposit in my case) when she either knew or should have known that the rafts would never be delivered. Since they were doing business across state lines, hence the Feds should look into. I urge others to contact the U.S. Attorney for R.I. as I did (look up his fax number on Google) and let's see if we can get a criminal probe going.

[Dansante85]

BTW, SSmakai, my sales invoice say "Givens Marine Manufacturing".