Despite signs of a slowly thawing economy, several Nevada businesses recently filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, a reminder that a complete recovery is still a ways off.

Both of the companies highlighted in the latest round of Nevada bankruptcy announcements are based out of the town of Henderson, located just outside of Las Vegas.

One of the companies, an investment and real estate firm known as Millenium Holding Group, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy after a series of failed ventures in banking and mortgages. The other, an educational company called Mobius Mathematics, filed for bankruptcy after its academic enrichment programs failed to catch on and become profitable.

Millenium Holding Group, owned by a couple, Richard and Carla Aufdenkamp Ham, was a publicly traded company that sought to find profit in real estate deals, financial products and mortgage banking. It operated at one point as a mortgage banker under the name Fynancial Mortgage Corp, according to an article in the Las Vegas Sun.

Among the liabilities listed by Millenium Holding Group in its Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing are a total of $7.4 million in lawsuit judgments that are outstanding, settlements owed to lenders and investors, and money still owed to investors and creditors.

Also among these liabilities is back pay and deferred wages for the Hams themselves, valued at around $3 million. There were no assets listed, according to the Sun.

A Securities and Exchange Commission filing revealed that the company appeared to have brought in little to no revenue through 2005, even as the losses piled up in the millions, reaching just over $10 million at one point. After 2007, the Sun reports that the company stopped filing reports with the SEC, though previously they had stocks trading on the penny stock market.

Before filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the Hams had attempted to build an online bank and an online insurance company.

Mobius Mathematics, the other Chapter 7 headline, is an educational company that established “Math Monkey Knowledge Centers,” according to the Las Vegas Sun.

The products are billed as an academic enrichment program, with a curriculum to boost logic and reasoning skills through a monkey-themed series of classes franchised out to independent owners and operators.

There are eight franchise agreements listed in the bankruptcy filing, with owners in Florida, California, New Jersey, Ohio, Georgia, Kansas and Ohio. The value of these assets was not known.

Operators of Mobius Mathematics, Carl and Maia Emery, have listed $11,000 in assets against almost $70,000 in liabilities. Mobius income was around $133,000 in 2009, and around $71,000 in 2010, according to the Las Vegas Sun.

The cost to start a franchise of the company was between $84,000 and $151,500.

Mobius itself is owned by another entity of the Emery couple known as The Troop Group, also based in Henderson, Nevada.

Carl Emery’s background is in sales and marketing, as well as experience in the Air Force. Maia Emery brought 20 years of business and education experience to the company, as well as a degree in mathematics and a certificate in middle school math.

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