Trustee Tells Pioneer to Hurry Reorganization Plan : Banking: The mortgage company says an outline should be completed soon, but a section on investors’ options won’t be ready until mid-February.

U.S. Trustee Sandra Wittman on Tuesday urged Pioneer Mortgage President Dennis Schmucker to speed work on a reorganization plan that will tell anxious investors how many cents on the dollar their investments in now-bankrupt Pioneer are likely to yield.

Before entering bankruptcy court in January, Pioneer had arranged $200 million in real estate loans for 2,000 investors. A hefty majority of those loans are no longer current, and investors are increasingly fearful that they will never recoup their money.

Although Wittman applauded Schmucker for his work at Pioneer, she threatened to ask U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James W. Meyers to intervene if a plan isn’t forthcoming.

Wittman could ask Meyers to set a deadline for Schmucker, or to appoint a trustee who would oversee the formulation of a plan. Wittman could also ask Meyers to simply order the bankrupt company to sell off its remaining assets and turn over any receipts to investors.

“We have to move these cases along,” Wittman told about 100 investors who attended a Tuesday meeting at Golden Hall. “We have to apply a little bit of pressure. . . . I want to tie this thing down. . . . You have to know what’s happening.”

On Tuesday, Schmucker told investors that the first part of the reorganization plan, an outline describing how the company’s remaining assets would be dealt with, should be completed late this month. However, a more complex section that describes investors’ options won’t be completed until mid-February, Schmucker said.

After Tuesday’s meeting, Wittman declined to say whether Schmucker’s proposed dates were in keeping with her timetable for the development of a plan. Although Wittman again praised Schmucker for making strides, she repeated that “this thing has to come to a conclusion.”

Creation of a plan has been Schmucker’s main objective since the San Diego-based businessman took control of Pioneer in January, just days after Pioneer entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

But Schmucker said creation of a plan has been difficult because Gary Naiman, Pioneer’s former owner and president, failed to maintain accurate records of where and how investors’ funds were invested.

Because of that records breakdown, Pioneer employees are still struggling to match up investors and investments. By mid-January, Schmucker hopes to be able to tell investors “where the records show you to be invested.”