The successor to Metromedia International Group Inc., the focus of a Greater Des Moines stockbroker’s eight-year quest to find answers about a multimillion-dollar investment that went bad, filed Thursday to reorganize under federal bankruptcy laws.

MIG Inc. said in the filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware that it needs to get its finances in order after a Delaware state court ordered it to pay more than $188 million to individuals and investment groups that held the company’s preferred stock before it was bought by a London-based private equity group in 2007.

The company changed its name in January to MIG Inc.

MIG’s chief financial officer said in an affidavit filed today in the bankruptcy case that though the company’s assets are valued at several times the amount of the state court judgment, they are largely illiquid and tied up in telecommunications companies located in countries that were part of the former Soviet Union, principally Georgia.

The filing outlines a corporate history that dates to 1929 and involves the ownership of motion picture studios, lawn and garden equipment manufacturers, other media interests and the Eastern European telecommunications companies.

John Kluge, once tagged the richest man on the planet by Forbes magazine, was the guiding force behind Metromedia. Kluge, his investment trust and business partner John Subotnick are listed as a creditors in the bankruptcy filing, due more than $10.8 million under the state court ruling.

The bankruptcy filing also outlines the tumbling fortunes of the company earlier this decade when stockbroker Kevin McLaughlin and nearly 300 investors in Iowa and other states watched the value of their investments in the company collapse. McLaughlin estimated in a June 1 Business Record story that his clients lost between $3 million and $5 million, while he lost $300,000 himself.

McLaughlin estimated that he has spent nearly $1 million of his own money seeking documents, filing lawsuits and otherwise attempting to determine whether the company deliberately devalued its assets to be purchased at reduced prices by insiders and sold later at a profit.

McLaughlin could not be reached today for comment.

The company’s corporate counsel said today in an interview with the Business Record that MIG experienced problems with financial record keeping in the early 2000s, but at no point did it deliberately attempt to defraud investors.

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