What’s left over when a high-flying investment house goes bust? Step into the Tamarac warehouse of AMC Liquidators to find out.
There, the gilded furnishings and lavish artwork of Stanford Financial Group’s Miami office are being sold months after Allen Stanford’s international banking empire collapsed amid a criminal investigation that stretches from Texas to the Caribbean.
Among the inventory: intricately carved entry tables with marble tops and hand-painted floral accents. Bronze sculptures of eagles poised for a kill. A wall tapestry depicting French royalty on horseback.
“A lot of his furniture was very regal. I think he took himself very seriously,” said Pamela Grimmé, who helps her husband, Michael, run AMC. “He had a title, didn’t he?”
Stanford became the Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of the Nation (Antigua and Barbuda) in late 2006 — recognition for the Stanford Group’s position at the center of the two islands’ economies. An announcement at the time said only the government employed more citizens than the Stanford International Bank.
It’s that high-flying corporate peerage that AMC hopes to profit from as it markets the estimated $2 million worth of stuff hauled from offices on the 12th, 21st, 26th and 27th floors of a Miami high rise that Stanford Financial Group rented.
The space at 201 S. Biscayne Blvd was vacated amid one of the most spectacular local collapses in the ongoing financial crisis. The Texas financier has been connected with an $8 billion fraud involving certificates of deposits sold by the international bank he set up in Antigua.
Lawrence Sherlock, a partner in a Houston law firm representing Allen Stanford as he fights the Internal Revenue Service over a $100 million tax lien, said Tuesday he could not comment on the Miami office’s liquidation.
But he did note his client “has not yet been accused of committing any crime.”
The Securities and Exchange Commission claims Antigua’s Stanford International Bank offered CDs with “unsustainable” returns as high as 17 percent, then invested the sale proceeds in risky vehicles, like real estate and private equity. Many of those CDs in the alleged Ponzi scheme reportedly went to Latin American investors doing business with Stanford’s Miami office.
While AMC usually downplays the source of its merchandise, its website now touts as its featured inventory the “Stanford Financial Furniture Liquidation.”
“It has that panache to it,” Michael Grimmé said.
The knit tapestry of King Louis XIV that hung on a Stanford International wall in Miami is priced at $1,200 in the AMC showroom and is displayed not far from a shelf of empty piñatas bought from a failed party store.
AMC priced a Stanford marble side table with claw feet at $1,699, and bronze eagle statues — the bank’s corporate symbol — go for $999.
While some of the items offered at the warehouse in the 3700 block of West Commercial Boulevard do stand out as opulent — silk carpets and a mahogany easel for original artwork — most of the desks and chairs pulled from the Miami Center tower resemble the trappings of a high-end law firm or bank.
But the quantity offers the most telling reminder yet of the size of Stanford’s corporate footprint in Miami.
AMC hauled 24 truckloads from the 90,000-square feet of Stanford offices, Michael Grimmé said, working overnight to empty out the space.
Eighty-six paintings sit stacked on a shelf in the AMC warehouse, and hundreds of cherry-wood desks sit on their sides in the cramped depot.
AMC typically pays pennies on the dollar for unwanted furniture in exchange for absorbing moving costs, but Michael Grimmé would not disclose how much the company paid for the Stanford merchandise. He said he negotiated with the office building to obtain the furniture, with the landlord keeping the proceeds.
A federal judge in Dallas has named a receiver to liquidate the company, and court records show the contents of Stanford offices around the country are being sold.
Much of AMC’s inventory comes from hotels upgrading their room decor, so the Grimmés are used to stocking art that’s hard to sell.
But they said the Stanford portfolio stood out for its high quality.
“I think the investment in art was ridiculous,” Pamela Grimmé said. “We’ve got originals here — which is scary.”
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1089891.html
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