Business Owner Struggles for $135K After Marquee Event Rentals Sudden Closure
Jake Mathis, founder of Southern Reins Logistics, says he's been fighting for months to recover money owed to him by Marquee, a leading party and event supply company.
Abstract
Jake Mathis, owner of Southern Reins Logistics, claims Marquee Event Rentals owes him more than $135,000 for transportation services.Marquee Event Rentals unexpectedly closed its Chicago branch, leaving vendors like Mathis unpaid.Mathis has had difficulty getting answers despite EventWorks acquiring some of Marquee's assets.
Chicago- A small business owner in Georgia is seeking answers after Marquee Event Rentals abruptly closed its Chicago branch, leaving behind what he claims is more than $135,000 in unpaid invoices for work his company had completed.
After Markey abruptly closed its McCook, Illinois, warehouse and local offices on Monday, September 16 — leaving employees in the dark — the fallout is still ongoing.
Now, one vendor is sharing his frustration, telling FOX 32 Chicago that he owes large sums of money in unpaid bills.
Jake Mathis, founder and CEO of Southern Reins Logistics, says he's been fighting for months to recover money owed to him by Marquee, a leading suburban event and party planner.
“Nobody is answering the phone, they are avoiding us left and right,” Mathis said. “I fight for young people with small businesses, and it’s not right what these young people are doing to us.”
Before any festival or big event, it takes a village to put all the pieces in place.
“We are just a middleman facilitating transportation across the country,” Mathis said.
Mathis, who is based in Alpharetta, Ga., began working with Markey’s Dallas office late last year, handling transportation for large events and festivals. The partnership seemed promising at first, with Markey paying upfront for his services. But when the company’s Chicago and Kansas City branches hired him to do more jobs — including transportation for Lollapalooza — Mathis says the payments stopped coming.
“We didn't have any red flags pointing to that, but then they kept increasing the bill,” Mathis said.
Mathis says he now has more than $135,000 in unpaid invoices for work his company has completed over the past six to nine months.
“Then we covered everything. We just said, ‘Hey, we’re done here, we need to see some payments coming in,’” Mathis said. “I know Lollapalooza paid Marky’s for their work, so Marky’s has the money, but they’re just withholding it from us.”
Mathis says contract work for Lollapalooza is just one of the tasks that Markey doesn’t pay Southern Rains Logistics for. Amateur golf events and other music festivals are also on the bill.
The employer shared an email he received on August 20 with FOX 32 Chicago. It came from Dan Farrell, Marquee's former Midwest region vice president.
In the correspondence, Farrell wrote, in part:
“Our accounting team is aware of the past due balances at Southern Reins and is currently working on forecasting to get a better understanding of when payments will be made. We should have a payment schedule in place next week.”
But more than a month later, Mathis says he still hasn’t received a check. He tells FOX 32 he hasn’t been contacted about his unpaid bills, and his efforts to reach out to Marquee’s private equity partners and financial advisors have gone unanswered.
Mathis also said he was shocked to learn that the local Marky's warehouse in McCook had now closed. He said he had not received any notice of the closure.
Prior to the sudden closure of Markey's Chicago branch, EventWorks announced that it had acquired some of the company's assets.
EventWorks calls itself “the largest event and wedding rental provider in the Southeast.”
Despite the acquisition, Mathis is still in the dark. He says the amount owed to him may not seem like much for a large company, but to him it is huge.
“I’m a small business owner, I don’t have private investment, I don’t have investors, I don’t have millions and millions of dollars,” Mathis explained. “I have 30 employees, and those employees have husbands and wives and children trying to feed them and put food on their tables and that’s a big responsibility for someone like me. So that’s why it hurts me so much and that’s why I’m fighting so hard because I have a lot of private investment supporting them.”
FOX 32 Chicago called, left voicemails, emailed and texted multiple Marquee Event Rentals executives and contacts seeking a response to Mathis’ comments before publishing this report. We also reached out to Marquee’s private equity partner, Dubin Clark, and its financial advisor, G2 Capital Advisors. No responses were provided.
Additionally, FOX 32 reached out to EventWorks — the company that purchased some of Marquee's assets — in an attempt to help Mathis get some answers, but the company did not immediately respond to our request for comment.
