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Nearly 600 Remine creditors, current and former multiple listing service customers and others have received notices informing them that the sale of the firm will close on May 2 unless they object.
On Thursday, April 17, the law firm that handled Remine’s $1.5 million sale at auction, Womble Bond Dickinson LLP, told the Delaware Chancery Court that it had sent a sale affidavit from James E. Gansman of business restructuring firm Rock Creek Ventures to a list containing 590 names of individuals, companies, government entities and others who are a “creditor or person in interest” of Remine.
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According to Gansman’s affidavit, Rock Creek Ventures reached out to 123 parties regarding the sale of Remine’s assets. Of those 123, 16 parties signed nondisclosure agreements, and Rock Creek Ventures gave 10 management presentations. Rock Creek Ventures subsequently received indications of interest and proof of funds from three prospective buyers, all of whom participated in the auction that took place on April 16.
“[Rock Creek Ventures] determined that the opening bid was the bid of Place Technologies Holdings, Inc. of $1,500,000 in cash at closing, subject to overbids in increments of $100,000,” the affidavit reads.
“After informing the two other prospective purchasers of the opening bid and overbid amounts, one bidder declined to overbid and dropped out of the Auction. The second prospective purchaser submitted a contingent bid.”
Eric Stegemann told Inman last week his company, Solid Earth, was one of the other bidders, adding that he was disappointed to lose because Remine is “a very good product.”
According to the affidavit, Place’s bid “was deemed the highest and best offer and the winning bidder” and Rock Creek Ventures believes the proposed asset purchase agreement with Place, which was included in the legal filings, “represents the maximum value that can be achieved for the Remine assets.”
Remine’s assets include its Docs+ transaction management platform, Remine Pro, Remine, Remine Mobile, Add/Edit for single point of entry, Remine’s SSO dashboard and MLS 2.0.
Rock Creek Ventures assured the court that Place “has no affiliation with any director, officer, employee or creditor” of Remine or its parent company, MLS Technology Holdings (MLSTH). MLSTH, a joint venture created by Austin Board of Realtors’ Unlock MLS, First MLS, Miami Realtors’ MLS and Heartland MLS, bought Remine in 2021 for $53.5 million.
Rock Creek Ventures also said it intends to close the sale on May 2 unless it receives an objection from an interested party or the court.
Any responses or objections to the sale affidavit must be filed with Delaware’s Chancery Court on or before May 1, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
Ben Kinney
According to Ben Kinney, co-founder and co-CEO of Place, the court will determine which creditors receive funds from the acquisition.
“Place is not involved in the allocation of funds to creditors,” he told Inman.
According to legal filings, MLSTH set aside a budget of about $1.2 million to sell Remine through a bankruptcy alternative known as an assignment for the benefit of the creditors or ABC. Each MLS owner lent Remine an additional $300,000 in secured debt to fund the process. This means the sale may have done little more than cover the cost of selling the firm.
Kinney told Inman he did not know how much Remine actually spent on selling itself.
Place is acquiring only Remine’s assets and not its debts, according to Kinney.
“The transaction includes no debt or liabilities,” Kinney said. “Place itself is a debt-free company.”
Inman reached out to Emily Chenevert, CEO of ABoR and Unlock MLS; Jeremy Crawford, CEO of First MLS; Teresa King Kinney, CEO of Miami Realtors’ MLS; and Kipp Cooper, CEO of Heartland MLS, for comment on whether they expect to recoup any funds from the sale.
All are members of the MLSTH board. They did not respond to requests for comment.
According to legal filings, Remine has never turned a profit and accumulated $11.2 million in debt before the sale.
It is unclear how many of the 590 listed in legal filings are actual creditors. Gansman did not respond to requests for comment.
Many of the MLSs Inman reached out to said they were either past or current customers of Remine, but that the company did not owe them any money.
Saul Klein
“SDMLS received notice of the sale as a creditor last week,” Saul Klein, CEO of San Diego MLS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Greater San Diego Association of Realtors, told Inman via email.
“We were a client to the tune of $40,000 per year, and I terminated that contract shortly after I took the CEO position [in early 2024].”
“Very few users were utilizing the product, which justified our dropping Remine,” he added.
He said he searched the company’s records and contract with Remine and “found no indication of any loan from SDAR or SDMLS” and therefore didn’t think SDAR would weigh in on the sale.
“I think they may have listed any ‘partner’ (read: customer) as a creditor,” he said.
Brad Bjelke
Similarly, Brad Bjelke, CEO of UtahRealEstate.com, told Inman he thought the list may include both creditors and current and former customers, though he had no knowledge on the issue.
“Also, I have no knowledge of URE being a creditor of Remine or being an investor in Remine, or being owed money by Remine,” Bjelke said.
“So other than being a current customer of Remine, I’m not sure why we would be on that list.”
CLAW CEO Annie Ives also told Inman she didn’t know why her MLS was on the list. CLAW had stopped using Remine about two years ago.
Likewise, MLS PIN spokesperson Melissa Lindberg told Inman, “MLS PIN is not a creditor with Remine; they do not owe us any money. We are simply a licensee/customer.”
OneKey MLS CEO Richard Haggerty also told Inman that OneKey is a current Remine customer, but OneKey is not a Remine investor.
NorthstarMLS and its president and CEO Tim Dain are listed, the latter likely because he is a former Remine executive. Still, he told Inman,”I did not invest and NorthstarMLS was only a customer for three years, no investment.”
George Pickard, CEO of Northern Nevada Regional MLS, said NNRMLS hasn’t invested in Remine, but offered its prospecting platform as a member benefit “until several years ago.”
“Remine has attracted a lot of strong talent over the years, delivering powerful software that broke new ground in real estate technology and raised the bar for everyone else in the MLS vendor space,” Pickard said.
“I’m excited to see what the next chapter will bring.”
Denee Evans
Two industry trade groups were also listed: the Council of MLSs (CMLS) and the Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO). CMLS CEO Denee Evans said the trade group had never invested in Remine and that “Remine does not owe CMLS any money. They do not have any outstanding invoices and CMLS has not been a part of any Remine transactions.”
Asked whether Remine owes RESO any dues, RESO CEO Sam DeBord told Inman, “We don’t have any past dues receivable for Remine on our books at this time.”
Sam DeBord
“Remine was a RESO member prior to this transition period, and we look forward to restarting that relationship alongside the company’s continued success in serving real estate brokers under its new ownership,” he added.
Two MLSs Inman reached out to declined to comment on being listed among Remine’s creditors: Bright MLS and BeachesMLS. Dionna Hall, CEO of BeachesMLS, told Inman she could not comment because “We previously signed an NDA.”
The Houston Association of Realtors, Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, Larson Skinner, REcolorado, Alaska MLS, Stellar MLS, Realcomp, RMLS, San Francisco Association of Realtors, and NTREIS, which are also included among Remine’s creditors, did not respond to requests for comment.
See the list of creditors and persons of interest (re-load page if document is not visible):
Editor’s note: This story has been clarified to note that Solid Earth was one of the other bidders for Remine.
