It might have been hotel bills that caused Interex to check out

A closer look at the Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing for the former HP users group showed its biggest creditors are hotels. Interex owes $555,608 to the San Francisco Marriott, and $365,364 to the Renaissance Parc 55 hotel, guarantees for blocks of room nights associated with the cancelled San Francisco HP World conference. Members at the OpenMPE meeting last week were curious about unpaid bills for the Moscone Center space, but only $116,850 showed up for the San Francisco Convention Facilities.

In comparison, Interex owed the hotels it contracted with ten times as much; the unpaid bills to six hotels in three cities totalled $1.21 million. To be fair, some of those hotels could have recovered some of those room nights, since Interex called off its show four weeks before San Francisco check-ins. But the bills also included $39,751 owed to the Chicago Hilton, the site of the last HP World in 2004.

Two Washington DC hotels were also listed, evidence of room block reservations for a future conference. Interex’s Ron Evans, the executive director who signed the filing, listed just $713,409 in 2005 user group income through July 20, compared to $6.39 million for all of 2004. Evans’ compensation was more than $220,000 per year, according to court documents. Interex “estimates that funds will be available to unsecured creditors” in the bankruptcy, according to the group’s Statement of Financial Affairs.