A Garrett manufactured housing plant slated to close next month is now expected to remain open, thanks to $1.75 million bid by two businessmen and its general manager.
About 80 people work at the Garrett plant of bankrupt Riverside, Calif.-based Fleetwood Homes, including 60 plant workers and 20 office staff. That number could approximately double by next June if the new ownership meets its production goals.
Walt Fuller, who owns M&S Steel and two other companies near Fleetwood, his partner Jerome Henry Jr. and plant general manager Wally Comer submitted a bid of $1.75 million in May. The group had submitted a bid for "considerably less," but that was turned down, Comer said.
The second bid was accepted by Fleetwood, Comer said. It will be filed Wednesday with U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California in Riverside, which is handling the bankruptcy proceeding.
The new company would be called Adventure Homes of Garrett, Indiana, but the product would be the same.
Comer said the goal is to make to six to eight "floors" – each floor representing a single-wide or half a double-wide home – five days a week. The bankruptcy process has slowed business, he said, and the company is currently making three floors about four or five days a week
If it meets production goals, Comer thinks Adventure Homes could employ more than 150 by June of next year.
With no other bidders on the horizon, Comer hopes new ownership will be able to takeover between Aug. 6 and 15. He concedes that others could make a play for the plant, but doesn’t see that as likely. Another bidder, Cavco Industries, submitted an offer for seven of Fleetwood’s 10 plants, but not the Garrett plant.
"Quite frankly, I think we will probably get this company," Comer said. He acknowledged that saving jobs was a central motivation, but said the move wasn’t purely philanthropic.
"I think this is a good business," Comer said. He hopes to raise plant worker’s wages from $17 to $18 an hour to $20 or more and offer profit-sharing.
mschroeder@jg.net
