Chesapeake Closing Doors in 3 Months
Chesapeake Industries Inc. said Friday that it has placed three of its five subsidiaries into bankruptcy and intends to sell most of its assets in the next three months.
As a result, the publicly traded company--which makes wooden doors and related parts--will close.
The subsidiaries of Newport Beach-based Chesapeake are in Fullerton, Santa Ana, Northern California and Florida.
Company officials declined comment Friday beyond the information in a terse statement issued late in the afternoon.
That statement said the company intends to sell “substantially all of the assets of its operating subsidiaries” by March 31 and has placed three subsidiaries--Anderco Inc. in Fullerton and Continental Door Inc. and Forest Products Manufacturing Co., both in Rocklin near Sacramento--into Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, protecting the assets from creditor claims.
Chesapeake, which posted record sales of $49 million in its 1989 fiscal year, has reported annual losses since 1987.
Sales dropped to $44.8 million for the fiscal year ended June 30 and the firm apparently has become a victim of the construction industry slump.
The bankruptcy filing indicated that the units employ a total of 150 to 200 people.
Chesapeake’s fourth operating unit is Southern Door Co. of Pompano Beach, Fla.
In November, Chesapeake closed a fifth unit, Like Manufacturing Corp. in Santa Ana, and said it would lay off about 30 of the workers there and transfer a dozen or so to Anderco, which had 40 employees at the time.
In the petitions filed in federal bankruptcy court in Santa Ana, the company said Anderco has $2.8 million in assets and $1.2 million in debts, listed assets of $2.5 million and debts of $3.3 million for Forest Products and said its largest unit, Continental Door, had assets of $10 million and liabilities of $7.3 million. The petitions did not list creditors.
Chesapeake’s common stock is traded over the counter and has rarely been more than $1 per share in the past year. It closed Friday unchanged at 38 cents a share.
