Tough Mudder’s bankruptcy trustee is racing to save the company’s endurance event business with a sale to rival Spartan Race Inc., a deal that the company’s owners previously balked at closing, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bankruptcy trustee Derek Abbott has filed papers that say the sale to Spartan Race is market-tested and ready to go despite the refusal of owners William Dean and Guy Livingstone to follow through with it. He is asking a judge to sign off on a sale of the Tough Mudder assets to its rival, warning that the business, which shut down in December due to lack of cash, could be beyond saving if a deal takes too long. “As a result of the debtors ceasing operations, the events scheduled for the first three quarters of 2020 are no longer salvageable and will need to be canceled,” Abbott wrote in a filing on Feb. 7 with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. He wants to close the Spartan Race sale by the end of February. With the motto “Probably the Toughest Event on the Planet,” Tough Mudder goes city-to-city, erecting obstacle courses that draw endurance athletes to test their skills. Creditors that filed a bankruptcy petition against Tough Mudder in January are involved in building the courses, and say that they are out hundreds of thousands of dollars.
