NEW YORK — The public auction of Blockbuster Inc. opened this morning, with a $284 million bid from Charles Ergen’s Douglas County-based Dish Network Corp. named the highest qualified offer from the opening five bidders.
A $280.9 million bid came from a group led by hedge-fund manager Carl Icahn named the second highest.
Those bids topped that of the stalking-horse bid from a group of Blockbuster bondholders led by Monarch Alternative Capital, which bid $265 million that could have been increased to $290 million under certain circumstances.
Parties bidding for Blockbuster began raising their offers, with the Monarch-led group re-taking the lead at just past 11 a.m. EDT.
The two other groups submitting qualified bids are South Korea’s SK Telecom Co., and a joint bid by liquidators Gordon Brothers Group and Hilco Merchant Resources.
The bid by Gordon Brothers and Hilco, if successful, would mean Blockbuster would cease to exist as a mainstay video-store chain as the two intend to liquidate all of Blockbuster’s remaining stores.
Blockbuster filed for Chapter 11 protection in September with plans to reorganize, but lackluster holiday sales and continued losses forced the company to put itself on the market.
