Judge Backs Receiver for Charter School Chain

(CN) - A federal judge in Atlanta approved the hiring of a receiver to turn-around a money-losing chain of charter schools that was sued by its primary lender in September.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten endorsed the hiring of Katie Goodman, of GGG Partners, LLC, at the request of both Mosaica Education, Inc. and its lender, Tatonka Capital.

The litigants agreed Goodman's supervision will allow more than 10,000 students, teachers and staff to continue classes without interruption.

In her new role Goodman will oversee the financial operations of Mosaica and certain of its subsidiaries.

Tatonka Capital Corp. sued Mosaica Education Inc. in September 2014 after the charter schools defaulted on $20 million in debt.

In its lawsuit, Tatonka claimed it has first lien on "substantially all of MEI's operating assets," and that "a series of bad business decisions" caused Mosaica to lose more than $86 million.

Mosaica has not made a regular payment to Tatonka since July 2013, the complaint said.

"Its major problem is that it makes investments into failing operations, throwing good money at bad situations despite the negative cash flow created by those investments," it continued.

Founded in 1997, Mosaica manages more than 30 K-12 schools with 25,000 students, more than 10,000 of them in the United States.

Tatonka opted to request the appointment of a receiver to avoid adversely affecting students and staff.

"I am very much looking forward to working with the Mosaica team," Goodman said. "We were only introduced a few weeks ago, but I have been very impressed with the company's operations and its focus on stellar academic achievement in the schools that it manages."

Goodman won the 2013 Small Company Turnaround of the Year Atlanta Chapter of Turnaround Management Association, "40 Under 40 M&A Advisor Recognition Awards" for turnaround professional by the M&A Advisor in and was included in the "Top 25 Power Woman" by Atlanta Woman Magazine in 2007.

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