Vera Holdings & Investments, Inc. is the corporate parent of Contractor Tool Supply, Inc. ("CTS"), a contractor-tools reseller that several creditors describe as also doing business as "Vera Tools." The JPW Industries proof of claim identifies three sales channels: a brick-and-mortar store in Lake County, Florida; the website contractortool.com; and a "Vera Tools Storefront" on Amazon.com. The Amazon storefront accounted for more than 80% of CTS's U.S. woodworking-tool sales by early 2024, making the marketplace the company's dominant route to customers.
CTS purchased over $6.3 million in products from JPW Industries in 2023 under the "Sphere 1 Preferred Vendor Agreement & Program," and JPW representatives referred to CTS as a "top partner" and the company's "third largest source of sales" before the relationship deteriorated, according to the JPW claim. Matthew "Max" King Jr. is identified in the WebBank/Libertas business loan agreement as an owner of Vera Holdings, signing that facility on the company's behalf.
The operating assets now being liquidated are housed at a warehouse at 1818 Greenleaf Lane, Leesburg, Florida, per the Dudley's Auction application. That facility is distinct from the under-construction commercial property at 2221 US Highway 441, Fruitland Park, Florida, which sits at the center of a separate lien dispute described below.
The court record in this case does not include a first-day declaration or schedules in the available filing index, so the causes of distress are reconstructed from the secured-creditor claims, the trade claims, and the cash-collateral filings. Four pressure points are visible from those documents.
The most distinctive is litigation with a key supplier. In July 2024, CTS sued JPW Industries in the Middle District of Florida (5:24-cv-00347-JA-PRL) alleging vertical price fixing and discriminatory pricing tied to JPW's Minimum Advertised Price policy and to restrictions on Amazon third-party sales, according to the JPW proof of claim. JPW counterclaimed for $150,464.25 in unpaid invoices and late fees. The antitrust case was stayed by the bankruptcy filing, and the Debtor has applied to retain special counsel to continue prosecuting it.
The second pressure point was a stalled commercial build-out. Signature Enterprises, Inc. d/b/a Signature Construction asserts a claim for an unfinished CTS construction project at the Fruitland Park property, grounded in unpaid pay applications and retainage and later perfected as a mechanic's lien, per its proof of claim. The third and fourth pressure points are the company's two layers of acceleration-prone debt — a senior asset-based loan from Tiger Finance and a subordinate cash-advance facility from WebBank/Libertas — both detailed in the capital structure below.
The senior secured position belongs to Tiger Finance, LLC under a credit agreement dated March 21, 2025 — less than eleven months before the petition. Tiger's proof of claim asserts an aggregate $14,595,328.94 as of the petition date, consisting of $9,647,089.93 in principal plus roughly $5 million in default-rate interest, fees, and charges. Tiger holds duly perfected liens on substantially all of the Debtor's personal property, and a pre-petition action styled Tiger Finance, LLC v. [Debtor] was already pending when the case was filed. Default-rate interest accrues at approximately 14.6% per the updated cash-collateral budget.
Stacked behind Tiger is a subordinate cash-advance facility. WebBank, serviced by Libertas Funding, LLC, disbursed $4,947,550 on September 26, 2025 — roughly four months before filing — under a Business Loan and Security Agreement carrying a $6,650,000 total repayment amount and a $50,000 origination fee, according to the WebBank/Libertas claim. The outstanding balance at the bar date was $6,333,438.33, with Vera Holdings as borrower and CTS as guarantor. The Fourth Interim Cash Collateral Order treats Libertas as subordinate secured behind Tiger Finance.
Two further secured parties hold collateral outside the personal-property pool. Fairwinds Credit Union is the mortgagee on the Fruitland Park real property and has moved for relief from the automatic stay to foreclose. Doosan Bobcat North America, Inc. holds equipment-secured claims on a Bobcat E35 compact excavator and a T650 compact track loader and has agreed to $2,500 per month in adequate-protection payments beginning June 1, 2026 under a stay-relief stipulation.
The unsecured trade ledger is substantial. The largest filed general unsecured claims include Signature Construction at $1,851,424.10, Festool USA LLC at $1,208,908.07 on a pre-petition settlement agreement, Capital One, N.A. at $992,659.34 in credit-card debt, Meguiar's, Inc. at $434,883.31, Louisville Ladder, Inc. at $272,534.75, and JS Products, Inc. at $226,509.91. JPW Industries' $150,464.25 counterclaim and Apex Tool Group's $158,968.09 claim round out the larger trade exposures.
The pivot point of the case came at the May 5, 2026 hearing before Judge Grace E. Robson. The Debtor's Emergency Motion for Approval of Post-Petition Financing was withdrawn in open court, foreclosing the financed reorganization path and consolidating the case around cash-collateral funding and inventory liquidation, per the hearing proceeding memo. At the same hearing, the court granted continued cash-collateral use, approved the motion to maintain pre-petition bank accounts, and approved retention of the Debtor's accountant.
The Debtor now operates under a sequence of interim cash-collateral orders, the most recent being the Fourth Interim Cash Collateral Order entered May 11, 2026. That order names Tiger Finance as the subject secured creditor, runs the Fourth Interim Period from May 5 through May 27, 2026, limits spending to the line items in the Exhibit A budget with a 10% per-line variance, and incorporates replacement-lien adequate protection from the prior interim order. Relief is expressly conditioned on the Debtor's continued retention of FTI Consulting under its April 3, 2026 engagement, and if Tiger declines to consent to non-conforming use or to use beyond the termination date, the Debtor must file an expedited continued cash-collateral motion on at least three business days' notice.
The accompanying budget makes the case posture explicit. The updated cash-collateral budget filed May 5 is titled a "4-Week Liquidation / Wind-Down Cash Flow Budget" covering May 3 through May 30, 2026. It projects $3,746,471 in total receipts against $2,564,525 in operating disbursements and $227,706 in non-operating disbursements, with inventory at cost stepping down from $16,603,680 to a projected $13,126,841 over four weeks at a 68% theoretical-retail realization assumption. Receipts derive solely from the sell-down of existing inventory through the Amazon FBA channel, and accrued unpaid restructuring professional fees climb from roughly $430,000 to $640,000 across the four weeks.
The wind-down is running behind that plan. The week-one budget-to-actual report showed receipts of $646,573 against $809,090 budgeted, a 20.1% shortfall. By the week-three cumulative report, receipts of $706,150 trailed the $998,647 budget by 29.3%, even as Tiger Finance interest continued to accrue. That same report references reconciling material variances "to the Tiger allowed-claim stipulation currently in process," indicating the Debtor and senior lender are negotiating a stipulated claim amount rather than litigating it.
With no plan, disclosure statement, or going-concern sale on file, the case has resolved into a piecemeal inventory liquidation. The Debtor's application to employ Dudley's Auction as professional liquidator, filed May 20, 2026, proposes selling the "open-box and returned inventory" at the Leesburg warehouse, with auction dates of June 20 and July 11, 2026 and a hard completion-and-removal deadline of July 31, 2026.
The application offers the estate two structures. Under the auction option, the estate would pay a $7,500 marketing fee, $6,500 in setup and labor, and a tiered commission of 10% on the first $250,000, 7.5% from $250,000 to $500,000, and 5% above $500,000, with the auctioneer retaining a 15% buyer's premium. Under the bulk-buyout alternative, Dudley's would pay the estate $165,000 with no commissions or fees. Dudley's asserts disinterestedness under section 101(14) with no connection to the Debtor, creditors, or U.S. Trustee.
The auction scope is narrower than the headline inventory figure suggests. The "open-box and returned inventory" covered by the Dudley's engagement is materially smaller than the roughly $16.6 million inventory pool in the wind-down budget, most of which continues to move through the Amazon FBA channel. The auction is structured to clear non-FBA stragglers rather than to serve as the principal liquidation vehicle.
The largest live priority dispute is over Makita U.S.A., Inc.'s administrative-expense claim. Makita seeks $370,301.16 under section 503(b)(9) for goods sold within 20 days of the petition. The Debtor's objection attacks the application on five grounds: Makita has not documented physical receipt of the goods within the 20-day window; the application omits a $33,583.24 prepetition return credit; it includes a $16,183.97 unexplained overstatement; it fails to net $12,505.52 in post-petition return credits; and Makita received $857,413.31 in potentially avoidable preference transfers within the 90-day reachback period. The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors has joined the objection and reserved its right to prosecute an independent objection. The matter was continued to the May 27, 2026 hearing.
A separate contest is taking shape over the Fruitland Park real property. Signature Enterprises recorded a claim of lien for $1,826,472.42 against 2221 US Highway 441 on April 16, 2026, then filed a section 546(b) notice of perfection on May 13, 2026, relating the lien back to a June 30, 2025 notice of commencement. On the same parcel, Fairwinds Credit Union moved for stay relief on May 4, 2026 to foreclose its mortgage. The result is a three-way priority contest among Fairwinds' mortgage, Signature's perfected construction lien, and the bankruptcy estate over a single property.
The Debtor's restructuring team is led by counsel Frank M. Wolff, with FTI Consulting serving as financial advisor through Christopher P. Creger. FTI's initial term ran April 1 through May 4, 2026 for a $150,000 fixed fee; the Debtor then filed a supplemental retention application on May 11, 2026 converting the engagement to hourly rates ranging from $1,270–$1,580 for senior managing directors down to $195–$395 for administrative staff, plus a $150,000 post-petition retainer. The court approved Matthew White of Crippen & Co., LLP as accountant on May 11, 2026, and the Debtor filed an application to employ Stretto, Inc. as claims and noticing agent on May 22, 2026, anticipating roughly 150 noticed entities.
An Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors is active and represented by McDermott Will & Schulte LLP, with Gregg A. Steinman appearing locally in Miami and Darren Azman, Stacy A. Lutkus, and Jared Mezzatesta admitted pro hac vice from New York, per the committee counsel filings. The committee has already participated substantively, joining the Makita objection and reserving its position on FTI's supplemental retention. The U.S. Trustee assigned to the case is Audrey Aleskovsky. No omnibus fee applications have yet been filed, but the wind-down budget accrues an unpaid professional-fee reserve climbing toward $640,000 by the fourth week.
| Date | Event |
|---|
| July 9, 2024 | CTS files antitrust suit against JPW Industries in M.D. Fla. (5:24-cv-00347) |
| March 21, 2025 | Tiger Finance credit agreement executed |
| June 30, 2025 | Notice of commencement recorded for the Fruitland Park build-out |
| September 26, 2025 | WebBank/Libertas disburses $4,947,550 to Vera Holdings |
| February 4, 2026 | chapter 11 petition filed in M.D. Fla., Orlando Division |
| April 3, 2026 | FTI Consulting engagement agreement |
| April 16, 2026 | Signature Enterprises records claim of lien against the Fruitland Park parcel |
| May 4, 2026 | Fairwinds Credit Union files motion for relief from stay |
| May 5, 2026 | Cash collateral granted; DIP financing motion withdrawn; wind-down budget filed |
| May 11, 2026 | Fourth Interim Cash Collateral Order entered; accountant retention approved |
| May 13, 2026 | Debtor objects to Makita's section 503(b)(9) claim; Signature perfects construction lien |
| May 20, 2026 | Debtor applies to employ Dudley's Auction as liquidator |
| May 22, 2026 | Debtor applies to employ Stretto as claims and noticing agent |
| May 27, 2026 | Continued hearing on cash collateral, special counsel, and the Makita claim |
| June 20 & July 11, 2026 | Proposed Dudley's auction dates |
| July 31, 2026 | Hard deadline for auction completion and inventory removal |
Who is the claims agent for Vera Holdings & Investments?
Stretto, Inc. is the proposed claims and noticing agent. The Debtor filed the retention application on May 22, 2026, and the firm would maintain the official claims register and distribute case notifications to creditors and parties in interest.
Which judge is handling the Vera Holdings chapter 11?
The case is assigned to the Hon. Grace E. Robson in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida, Orlando Division, under case number 6:26-bk-00763.
Is Vera Holdings reorganizing or liquidating?
The case has moved toward a wind-down. The Debtor withdrew its post-petition financing motion on May 5, 2026, and the operative cash-collateral budget is titled a liquidation and wind-down cash-flow budget, with inventory being sold down through Amazon FBA and a proposed Dudley's Auction.
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