All Seasons Emerges From Bankruptcy With Plan to Repay Creditors

All Seasons Resorts Inc. in Costa Mesa has emerged from the protection of a federal bankruptcy court with a plan to repay creditors with cash and stock.

The company operates a string of membership-only trailer campgrounds around the nation and is part of a once-thriving industry that grew up around Bellevue, Wash., 10 years ago.

All Seasons, like some of its competitors, fell on hard times when its corporate bureaucracy began growing faster than its revenue, said President and Chief Executive Ray Novelli.

Novelli is part of a limited partnership that bought the company in 1986, just as All Seasons was about to hit bottom.

The business works this way: All Seasons and its competitors sell memberships to owners of motor homes and trailers, targeting mostly retired people.

For an average initial fee of $6,500 and annual dues of $295, members get to camp in any of All Seasons’ 11 campgrounds for a maximum of 2 weeks. Then they must wait a week if they want to go back to the same campground.

Big Industry

It’s a big industry, Novelli said, with 1 million members.

The companies market mostly through direct mail, and several direct mail firms precipitated All Seasons’ bankruptcy by filing 75 suits around the nation in 1986 seeking repayment of debts in amounts up to $740,000.

Unable to defend all the suits at once, All Seasons filed for bankruptcy in February, 1987. In the meantime, it had been acquired by the limited partnership, Apollo Group, made up primarily of executives of Apollo Motor Coach Inc. and Revcon Motor Coach, both of Carson.

Once leaders in the motor-home industry, Apollo and Revcon make $100,000 luxury motor homes. But they began losing sales in 1983 to less expensive competing models made to sell for less than $50,000, Novelli said.

The two manufacturers began looking around for possible business alliances, and their executives found All Seasons.

Industry Coming Back

They moved the company from Bellevue to Costa Mesa and trimmed costs. They now say the industry is coming back, helped by an industrywide promotion campaign featuring Fess Parker, TV’s Daniel Boone.

With 15,000 members, All Seasons is tiny, contrasted with the industry giant, Thousand Trails, which has 100,000 members. Thousand Trails, which also started in Bellevue, experienced its own financial problems and is now owned by Dallas’ Southmark Corp.

Novelli said All Seasons has turned itself around since the bankruptcy filing.

The company reported earnings of $952,000 on revenue of $13.4 million for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 1987. The year before, All Seasons lost more than $10 million.

Through the first three quarters of this year, All Seasons reported earnings of $502,000 on revenue of $9.9 million.

A federal bankruptcy judge on Friday approved the company’s plan to pay unsecured creditors $1.9 million of the $4.5 million still owed them.

Those creditors also can choose to receive repayment of all of their debt in the form of common or preferred stock, the company said Monday.

Will Take Shares

The company’s largest unsecured lender, Empire of America, a New York thrift, has agreed to take 1.5 million shares instead of $1.5 million in cash, Novelli said.

The company had secured debts--those backed by the company’s collateral--of $27 million when it entered bankruptcy, but it has paid off $12 million since, Novelli said.

Those creditors are mostly financial institutions that finance the memberships bought by motor-home owners. They agreed to continue to extend credit to All Seasons through the bankruptcy, Novelli said.