Tim Ryan, tryan@wolfrivermedia.com
A sheriff’s sale of the former Ponderosa restaurant in Shawano that had been planned for Wednesday has been cancelled.
The property was one of 15 included in a sweeping, half-million dollar foreclosure suit against the Samanta Roy Institute of Science and Technology.
The suit was dismissed last month after a newly formed company purchased the debt, but the former Ponderosa Steak House at 1247 E. Green Bay St. was set aside for a separate sheriff’s sale after a partial foreclosure order was issued in June.
The property now remains in the hands of VDG LLC, a company that was incorporated on July 5, according to the state Department of Financial Institutions.
No other information about VDG is available. The company’s articles of incorporation list only the registered agent, Jeffery Phillips, an attorney with Sweet DeMarb LLC in Madison.
The law firm describes itself as an insolvency boutique representing businesses and individuals who find themselves in financial distress, according to its website.
Last month, VDG apparently reached an agreement with Wells Fargo Bank of Dallas to call off a foreclosure suit against 15 properties in Shawano and the town of Wescott owned by SIST and its subsidiary Midwest Properties of Shawano.
Court documents do not show the terms of the settlement between VDG and Wells Fargo.
SIST purchased the Ponderosa property in 2003. The restaurant closed its door in 2008 and the property has been sitting vacant since then.
According to the civil suit originally filed in December, a number of mortgages and land contracts on the SIST properties, including the Ponderosa, were bundled into a single consolidated loan agreement with M&I Bank in 2008 and were backed by a promissory note signed by SIST founder R.C. Samanta Roy, who has since changed his name to Avraham Cohen.
The debts were eventually acquired by Wells Fargo Bank of Dallas, which claimed in the suit that SIST and Cohen defaulted on the agreement.
The suit maintained that $526,388, including interest and fees, was still remaining on the debt.
In addition to the former Ponderosa, the targeted properties in the foreclosure action included the Midwest Gift and Fudge House, 104 Old Lake Road; vacant properties at 201 N. Main St. and 202 N. Washington St.; the former Subway at 951 E. Green Bay St.; the former Taco John’s restaurant at 1214 E. Green Bay St.; a property at 143 S. Main St., being rented to Hunan’s Chinese Restaurant, and 145 S. Main St., a vacant property next door; vacant properties at 128 E. Green Bay St. and at 311 E. Green Bay St.; an apartment complex at 117 Mills St.; and three other Wescott properties, N5654, N5660 and N5670 State Highway 47-55.
This was not the first mass foreclosure suit filed against SIST and its subsidiaries. Seven of the properties included in the Wells Fargo suit were part of a suit filed by M&I Bank in February 2011. The suit was dismissed in December of that year after SIST and M&I entered into a forbearance agreement.
SIST has nearly lost several properties over the years to foreclosure actions that were settled at the 11th hour.
However, SIST and its subsidiaries also have lost a number of properties to successful foreclosure suits over the last three years, including the following: an apartment building at 463 Humphrey Circle and 1024 E. Fifth St. in Shawano; the USA International Raceway in Wescott; Kiryat Hotel, now the Four Seasons Resort, 201 N. Airport Drive; El Mariachi Cantina and Grill, 635 S. Main St.; former Family Dollar property at 229 E. Green Bay St.; former Qualheim’s building at 153 S. Main St.