More WorldPoint relics on auction
By John Duchemin
Advertiser Staff Writer
Those who missed out on an indoor waterfall at the first WorldPoint foreclosure auction last summer, take heart: This could be your lucky weekend.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
For the second time, the assets of bankrupt WorldPoint are being sold to the highest bidder.
A Dell computer that's part of the WorldPoint bankruptcy auction gets the attention of Stephen Fujioka, accompanied by his uncle Bryan Fujioka. The large-screen TV on the wall will also be auctioned off today.
On the block this morning at McClain Auctions, 825 Halekauwila St., are the remnants of a company that was once hailed as a centerpiece of the Hawai'i technology industry but that fell victim to the dot-com bust and its own excesses.
Proceeds of the auction, which will be from 8 to 10 a.m., will help satisfy creditors' $13.5 million in claims in an involuntary bankruptcy case filed against WorldPoint this March.
The assets for sale are leftovers from a foreclosure auction last July that ended in legal action.
Sued by the state for refusing to pay about $800,000 in principal and interest from a 1996 loan, WorldPoint last year agreed to sell off its assets. The auction drew about 2,500 people, but auctioneer Mark Glen Auctions later sued WorldPoint, claiming breach of contract after president Massimo Fuchs withheld about 200 items from the auction. Some of the items are on sale today.
And yes, at least one of the "infamous waterfalls" is up for auction, says Marty McClain, owner of McClain Auctions, the court-appointed liquidator tasked with selling them.
Several of the 10-foot-high waterfalls bedecked the WorldPoint office in the penthouse of the 1132 Bishop St. office tower, at which the online translation company once employed dozens of software developers and engineers.
The company collapsed in early 2001 after earning far less than its expenses, which included its lavish headquarters in Honolulu and a spacious office loft in downtown San Francisco, which was leased at the height of that city's real estate boom and housed four employees.
Other souvenirs for sale, McClain reports, are a collection of 50-inch flat-screen plasma televisions, designed for wall mounting; Pentium computers with flat-screen monitors; glass-top tables; leather chairs; WorldPoint hats and shirts; VCRs; Sony and Bose sound systems; and an ice machine.
Fuchs bought many of the items during a spending spree that he said was designed to impress venture capitalists into investing in the company.
Yesterday, Fuchs said he hopes the auction goes well and helps satisfy creditors' claims.
