UPDATED — Minnesota-based Profinium Inc. has filed suit against Real Development and its principals, Michael Elzufon and Dave Lundberg, to foreclose on a few pieces of property they own here.
“It’s not nearly as icky as it might sound,” Elzufon says.
“Profinium’s great people,” he says. “We have a very long … and very good relationship with this bank.”
At issue are portions of the Petroleum Building at 221 S. Broadway and Broadway Plaza at 105 S. Broadway.
“We owe more than they’re worth,” Lundberg says.
Elzufon says the filing is mainly about one thing for Profinium.
“They need to protect their interests.”
Also, he says, it’s “for us to continue to make our exit out of various assets that we’ve had down there.”
Lundberg says there are liens and a couple of mortgages on the properties.
“In order to clean up the title, they’re going to foreclose on it,” he says. “It’s all worked out, but they filed it anyway. Their attorney jumped the gun a little bit.”
An attorney for Profinium says he can’t talk without his client’s permission, which he says he does not have.
Lundberg says they have some buyers lined up for the properties.
“I don’t know how this became such big news,” he says. “I guess we’re getting used to it.”
Also named in the suit are Petroleum Building LLC, Broadway Plaza I LLC, Broadway Plaza 2 LLC and Pat Ayars of Oxford Development Holdings.
“I have a guarantee on a sliver of debt for the building as do a lot of others,” Ayars says of one of the properties. “It had been my opinion that we had reached an agreement with the bank, but I guess we had not.”
Lundberg says they do have a memorandum of understanding.
“It’s similar to a short sale on (a) house.”
He says they’ll sell the properties, see how much they bring and work out the rest with the bank.
“And everybody goes home happy,” Elzufon says.
“Well, we don’t,” Lundberg says.
Elzufon thinks on that briefly.
“Yeah,” he says, “thank you. Good correction.”
