At the heart of the present battle over Uncle Nearest is the question of whether the company's financial condition has deteriorated to the point that the only viable action is to sell its assets to some other party. That's the view of the receiver, Philip G. Young, who has spent hundreds of hours uncovering what is admittedly a financial mess.

Fawn Weaver, the marketing genius who created the brand, doesn't deny the finances were a mess. She blames her former chief financial officer, and says she has spent more than 250 hours consulting with experienced bankruptcy and reorganization professional across the country.

Her conclusion: Bankruptcy Act protection is the most responsible path to preserve the value of Uncle Nearest, protect its creditors and shareholders, and stabilize operations." And she believes she has assembled the team to save the company.

Key to that belief is a finance team that would enable Uncle Nearest to "be well-positioned to address and remediate issues arising from prior deficiencies within the Company’s finance function and to repay its creditors in short order, while reorganizing its operations to address the challenges created by a single secured creditor that is actively pursuing actions adverse to the Company’s long-term success."

Leading that finance team would be Kenneth Welt, who was to serve as Chief Restructuring Officer. Welt is a current Chapter 7 panel trustee in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida, and, with a team of forensic accountants and CPAs he has assembled, has administered more than 150,000 Chapter 7 and Chapter 11 cases.

Those cases include matters involving the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission in courts across the United States, as well as complex engagements for special asset departments of both large and small banking institutions.