Proposed NYMP sale pending

FREEPORT, N.Y.—The New York Merchants Protective Co. Inc., a financially embattled New York-based alarm company that has been in the same family for about 100 years, was put up for sale late this summer.
The company has been under receivership since early this year, when Bank of America sued NYMP, which is based here, and its owner Wayne Wahrsager for more than $19.2 million for allegedly defaulting on a loan.
In August, the company's court-appointed receiver posted notices in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal saying that “substantially all the assets of the company” were for sale. The notices said that the assets, which range from accounts to furniture and inventory and also intangible assets, would go to Professional Security Technologies LLC of Nutley, N.J. under an asset purchase agreement unless the receiver got “higher or better” offers by Sept. 2.
The receiver, attorney Ronald Friedman, did not respond to Security Systems News' requests for comment so it's not known if he got any more offers.
The federal judge held a hearing on Sept. 26 on whether a sale should go forward, but no decision had been posted in court filings as of the morning of Sept. 30.
Wahrsager told SSN it's “a fire sale.”
He said he knows specifics of the sales agreement but is restricted by a confidentiality agreement from revealing them.
However, Wahrsager said, “it's a good deal for the buyer. He's paying pennies of what he would normally pay.”
In a memorandum that the receiver filed with the court this summer, he estimates the sale of NYMP to Professional Security Technologies will realize “$6.5 million and $9.5 million depending primarily upon the volume of NYMP customers that execute contracts with [the] buyer.”
According to New York state public records, Richard Rockwell is listed as the principal contact for Professional Security Technologies. Attempts by SSN to contract Rockwell, who also is the owner of a Maine company, Main Security Surveillance, were not successful.
Wahrsager is no longer involved with NYMP.
The receiver fired Wahrsager in the spring, and the termination was upheld by the judge. Wahrsager and the receiver have been engaged in a battle played out in court documents in which he charged that the receiver was grossly mismanaging the company, and the receiver claimed Wahrsager was intentionally sabotaging NYMP to thwart the bank.
Wahrsager told SSN on Sept. 2 that on the advice of his lawyer, he surrendered his shares in the company to the bank at the time of his firing because “I didn't want to be seen as a shareholder” involved in the company, which he claims “is just a shell of what it used to be.”
He said there are only about 25 employees left out of nearly 70 and contends more than 3,000 accounts have been lost out of the more than 8,000 commercial and residential accounts that he said existed when he was there.
“It's a terrible situation but I feel the worst for the employees and I feel miserable for the customers,” said Wahrsager, who says the bank is suing him personally for the loan, for which he said costs now are about $25 million because the company has performed so poorly.
“We're defending that vigorously and have our own counterclaims,” Wahrsager said. He contends he could have saved the company and repaid the bank if it had agreed to work with him.