A fleet of Evgeny “Gene” Freidman’s foreclosed taxi medallions sold on Monday in a closed-door auction taking place in a Queens, New York hotel.
All 46 medallions — the metal plates on yellow cab hoods allowing them to legally pick up street-hails — were won by a group identified in bankruptcy court documents as MGPE Inc. for a total of $8.56 million, or $186,000 per medallion, according to Crain’s New York. Business Insider was able to verify those numbers with an industry source as well.
The individual bidders behind MGPE Inc. are not identified in court filings but are part of a hedge fund and are expected to lease the medallions out to fleet operators, according to Crain’s and verified with an industry source.
The New York City taxi medallion industry is new territory for hedge funds, who may be seeing the recent drop in medallion prices as a buying opportunity. Taxi medallions peaked in value in 2013 at more than $1 million but are now often auctioned off for less than half that amount.
Matthew Daus served as head of the Taxi & Limousine Commission for more than eight years and currently works for the law firm Windels Marx which has taxi industry clients. He says hedge funds are a rare sight in the taxi industry.
“When I was head of the TLC we targeted groups like hedge funds,” says Daus. “We tried to get them involved, but they wouldn’t touch medallions with a 10-foot pole back then.”
In the week leading up to the auction, MGPE Inc. put in an opening “stalking-horse” bid for $7.7 million, or $167,500 per medallion. On the day of the auction, one group bid up the price, entering a bid of $175,000 per medallion for all 46 medallions before MGPE Inc. countered with the winning $186,000 per medallion bid.
There were also bidders willing to go higher than $186,000, but only for individual medallions. The auctioneer chose to go with MGPE Inc.’s bulk offer, according to Crain’s and verified by an industry source.
The $186,000 medallion price is not expected to become the new normal for future medallion auctions, according to Daus.
“These medallions were foreclosed upon as a part of Freidman’s bankruptcy,” says Daus. “These bulk bargain bids are not indicative of a medallion’s true market value.”
Fake cab
Relieve stand has become the parking lot for ubers..Cabbies getting tickets just going for pee
How does the phrase go? Even a dead cat jumps if thrown from high enough. As a former 19 year yellow cab driver, I would value a medallion at 50k or less. I don’t even ride yellow anymore. Just easier to open my Uber app and hit the button. I can’t believe I drove all those years picking up strangers in the night. Hailo failed big time because the old school medallion owners didn’t want to embrace technology fast enough. The owners and brokers pushed prices up in their quest for maximization of profits. Now during the bust they want to socialize the losses via a government bailout. When Bloomberg pushed the green cabs and new medallion sales, don’t you think he saw the writing on the wall? He tried to gain profit for NYC before enough smart people realized app based hailing was going to dominate the industry. Nothing wrong with that, it’s called capitalism. Just like an owner selling a medallion at inflated prices. Does anyone see flying drone type cars in the next 5 years? What will change then lol?
Can anyone share your thoughts about what Meera Joshi TLC Chairwoman that they are getting information on pick up and drop off data from app based FHV car, how accurate those data are?
Because IT giant like uber can get by dataset that they don’t want TLC or city agencies to see. It’s easy for them, just need to write the programming code such way so that data appear in a way that the full activities in NYC Manhattan don’t reflect.
Anyone can say anything about it
here we ho again .leash them
What is going on?
Is the yellowcab going to be trash container
Doormen in manhattan ny. are selling us Airport trips for cash. 10$ for laguardia ,10$ for Jfk ,15$ for Newark Airport..Why they gonna stop ,Or when Tlc is going to stop this illegal practices…
My message to the tlc and the city of ny as cab driver I can’t find a parking with a toilet ..no bathroom out there for cabbies ,it’s a shame we got to pee in bottles and getting tickets. ..Please …anywhere you go they say the bath is out if service even gas station …Can I pee ? Or not??? the biggest city doesnt have a toilettes with parking for cabbies….I woul suggest that the Tlc must build a complex parking yard with restaurant and bathrooms and gyms for cab drivers at the edge over waters of hudson river and east river …so all cabbies cab go there and enjoy their time..we need parking spaces with toilets…or cabbies can also print a relieve receipt from the metrer and display it over the dashboard so they don’t get tickets…Hello tlc are with us or against us???
TOILETS BATHROOM RELIEVE PARKING HANDWASH SOAP VENTILATION SANITATION HEATED SEAT AUTOCLEAN AUTOFLASH
HELLO NYC. WHERE CAN I PEE PLEASE
OR UBER HAS TO MAKE AN UBER CAR TOILET THAT YOU CAN CALL FOR PEE…
Uber passengers use Napkins to open uber car door…Dont you have an immunity system to fight germs ..
Taxis are blocking the 42st42st40st. 8th ave. the illegally double park
..get them out of the way …they waiting for out of town trips and they block the traffic .
taxis are blocking 7th ave and 33st/32st/31st. they double park and drop off at the second lane.
13st and washington st. taxis Blocking the intersection where constructions are taking place .
Central park south. Black SUV are Blocking traffic and would not move …
The plaza hotel on fifth ave ,New jersey plate Suv seen Blocking traffic..
44st between 5th and 6av. Tlc cars Blocking the Block with open doors and half patk their cars on the road…
Grand central hayatt hotell door men reserve Cars taxi and usv and Blocking traffic where construction is taken place,Including taxi stand when over crowded with taxis they Block second lane..
Impire state building 5th ave car standind there giving hard time for tlc cars to drop off.
29st and 6 Ave Suv park on loading zone of the hotel forcing other cars to drop off and they pickup from second lane.
Pedestrians Do not respect the arrow light turn on 33st and 6ave left turn making traffic worsened..
32st between broadway and fift ave. double parking blocks everything..
35st. 5/6v. doubt parking..
Madison leftside. of 41/42 st. cars double park..
50 st Madison /park ave. double parking consuzone..
53/6av. Double parking
Jfk taxi lot. Deli. Dont have ATM. Machine…They refused to give me my snack coffee because was shorter by 50cent..and they have no Atm machine,I came to jfk by uber car and didn’t have any extra cash never happened to me…That deli shouldn’t treat us differently…Oh man
fake cab I paid $10 to reserve my reservation, I was going to the airport the next moring, the motherfuking cab never showed up!!!
I had to literally go look for a taxi on the street “hail” I was leaving from Manhattan to Laguardia Airport, I was so pissed off because I didn’t wana miss my flight.
this is a motherfuking fake company
Yellow cab drivers are treated like second class citizens at Jfk, Lga and in manhatten, practically all spaces taxi relief stations are taken by Uber, no toilet to use, we pay MTA charges to city but aren’t allowed to pickup drop off or drive in mat bus lanes.
We facilitate NYC residents 24hrs but not treated with respect.
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