Things looked good for Dallas-based Earth Biofuels last summer: Willie Nelson and Morgan Freeman were on the board of directors, Julia Roberts signed on as pretty spokeswoman (she even went on Oprah to tout the company's efforts to get school buses off diesel and hooked instead on biodiesel), and the company was looking to reopen a long-shuttered ethanol plant south of New Orleans. But as we mentioned in January, courtesy Forbes, that New Orleans deal cost the company many millions, as it failed to make a deadline to come up the $80 mil needed to fuel the project.
Well, this week Forbes again comes bearing bad news for the company whose headquarters are on Knox Street:
Earth Biofuels...is having trouble paying its bills. The company planned to build a national chain of filling stations dispensing a brand of eco-friendly diesel it called Bio Willie. In April, after Earth Biofuels defaulted on a loan, Kings Road Investments won a $15.4 million judgment against it in state court.
Unfair Park's also found that in March, Earth Biofuels failed to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission its annual finance report, citing "circumstances surrounding the auditor review of our financial information" when requesting an extension. It has yet to file, but earlier this week, the company did name a new senior vice president of finance and chief administrative officer, restructuring specialist and SMU grad Van P. Carter. --Robert Wilonsky
