Sixteen years after Joe Francis founded Girls Gone Wild, a team of bankruptcy professionals put in charge of the franchise's holding company by a federal judge has begun to look for buyers for the business, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The Los Angeles-based company, which made a name for itself by filming impaired co-eds on spring break, distributes its porn through pay-per-view channels, DVDs and the Internet. The attorneys, under direction of the company’s chapter 11 trustee and former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent R. Todd Neilson, have already approached officials at adult film-giant Vivid Entertainment, though executive Bill Asher said that he’s not interested for now. Attorneys have said in court papers that they plan to market the brand to bidders who might eventually compete at a bankruptcy auction. Lawyers haven’t put a price on the Girls Gone Wild franchise yet. Francis said earlier this year that the Girls Gone Wild brand is worth more than $80 million, though court papers show that its holding company posted a profit of a little more than $500,000 on $2.4 million in sales since its February bankruptcy filing.
