A couple of months ago, the Jacksonville law office of Smith Hulsey & Busey had a small party to celebrate the successful conclusion of a case, a case more than three decades in the making.
Yes, the final decree was issued to end Charter’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.
The Charter Co., once a huge Jacksonville-based conglomerate, filed for Chapter 11 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Jacksonville in 1984. But it wasn’t until April 1 of this year that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jerry Funk signed the final decree declaring the last remaining case, that of Charter International Oil Co., to be closed.
According to the U.S. court system’s PACER database, there were 26 Chapter 11 petitions filed by Charter Co. and related subsidiaries under the Charter name on April 20, 1984.
The reorganization plan for Charter was confirmed by the court in 1986 and the company emerged from bankruptcy in 1987, but some of the cases remained open to handle various claims.
According to PACER, all but three of the cases were closed by 2001, with only Charter International Oil and two affiliated companies remaining.
Those companies were still dealing with cases of people who claimed chemical-related illnesses caused by the company, but who didn’t file their claims until after the reorganization plan was confirmed.
“It was kept open all these years to deal with those late claims,” said Smith Hulsey attorney James Post.
However, with no new claims filed for several years, Post filed a motion in February on Charter International Oil’s behalf to close the case.
“All matters to be completed upon the effective date of the confirmed plan have been fulfilled or completed,” the motion said.
The docket for the Charter International Oil case shows the last previous filing had been in 2009.
Post said several Smith Hulsey attorneys, including himself and Stephen Busey, have been handling Charter-related matters since the case was filed 31 years ago. That’s why the firm had a small party to celebrate the final decree, he said.
Charter’s spectacular rise and fall in the late 1970s and early 1980s is legendary in the Jacksonville business community.
The conglomerate controlled by Jacksonville businessman Raymond Mason was a Fortune 500 company that once had more than 180 subsidiaries ranging from banking interests to magazine publishing, but it made most of its money from oil. When oil prices began dropping in the early 1980s, Charter’s fortunes faded and it eventually landed in bankruptcy.
Financier Carl Lindner acquired control of Charter in the bankruptcy proceedings and eventually sold off its pre-bankruptcy assets.
He used the proceeds to acquire control of movie and television production company Spelling Entertainment Inc.
Charter, which continued to be publicly traded after emerging from bankruptcy, was renamed Spelling in 1992 and eventually bought out by another media company, Viacom Inc., in 1999.