Private purchases
Privately held companies have snapped up several area plants from bankrupt owners this year. Among them:
June 15 - Revstone Industries LLC buys Auburn and Pierceton auto parts plants owned by bankrupt Contech LLC for $13 million; 256 employees affected
June 19 - Multimatic Inc. buys Butler auto parts plant from bankrupt Noble International Ltd. for $1.66 million; 153 workers affected
July 18 - American Industrial Partners Capital Fund IV LP buys motor home assets in Decatur from bankrupt Fleetwood Enterprises Inc. for $53 million; 650 workers affected
Aug. 7 - MD Investors Corp. buys auto parts plants in Edon, Ohio, Bluffton and Fremont owned by bankrupt Metaldyne Corp.; 450 to 500 workers affected; part of a purchase of Metaldyne's worldwide operations for $40 million in cash and forgiveness of $400 million in debt
Aug. 11 - Adventure Homes LLC buys manufactured-housing plant in Garrett from bankrupt Fleetwood Enterprises Inc. for $1.75 million; 80 workers affected
Marty Schladen, The Journal Gazette
mschladen@jg.net
New companies are stepping in to buy up the area plants owned by bankrupt auto parts and RV makers. And it seems in every case, the new owners are privately held and often new to the sector into which they're buying.
Private-equity firms have a bad name in some circles. The private investors often disclose little about themselves and seldom plan to operate a company for more than five years. They're suspected by critics of facilitating the flow of U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas.
But they can also identify the most valued parts of a troubled company and preserve jobs, said Kenneth Carow, a professor of finance at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
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