Little Rock Jewelry Maker Files Chapter 7

By Arkansas Business Staff

12/25/2006

First we heard that jewelry manufacturer Richard Glatter Inc. had closed up shop at 1601 Westpark Drive.

Then we noticed that owner Richard Neil Glatter and his wife, Susan, had filed a personal Chapter 7 bankruptcy last Monday.

We brilliantly deduced that the two pieces of information were connected.

The Glatters listed just over $3 million in liabilities, most of them business debts. All but $635,000 in first and second mortgages is unsecured, including the largest chunk - an even $2 million - owed to Metropolitan National Bank of Little Rock, which had apparently allowed Glatter to secure the loan with inventory and accounts receivable now valued at $0.00. (The Glatters also listed another $17,671 unsecured debt to Metropolitan and a $43,000 promissory note to Mary Ann Cottrell of Little Rock among 15 pages of debts, many of them quite small.)

The phone at Richard Glatter Inc. was not answered last week, and the Glatters' bankruptcy lawyer, Frederick S. Wetzell III of Little Rock, said he wasn't authorized to comment.

Richard Glatter Inc. is still advertising its signature jewel-encrusted bracelet slides at www.glatter.com.