SIMI VALLEY : Officials Oppose Bid to Sell Trash Firm

Officials from eastern Ventura County’s largest trash hauler are gearing up to fight a proposal to put the company up for sale.

The company, G.I. Industries of Simi Valley, is in the middle of a three-year bankruptcy reorganization, and the trustee administering the reorganization announced recently that he would ask a federal bankruptcy judge to allow him to sell the company. A hearing is set for Sept. 29 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Barbara.

After hearing that news Wednesday night, the Moorpark City Council decided to wait a month before signing a five-year trash-hauling contract with G.I., which also serves Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley.

Hoping to reassure officials in the three cities, G.I. Chief Executive Officer Michael Smith said Friday that the company was not on the verge of being sold.

“We don’t want to sell it,” Smith said. “This is simply the trustee’s motion to begin a sale procedure, it’s not being sold on the 29th.”

A lawyer for former CEO Manuel Asadurian Sr., a large shareholder who continues to work for the company and serves on its board of directors, said Asadurian and other family members do not want to sell. The family members are the firm’s largest shareholders.

“The hearing on the 29th is simply a request for permission to sell the company,” said David Weinstein, Asadurian’s attorney. “We have filed a qualified opposition to the move, stating that any discussion of a sale should be deferred pending a plan of reorganization.”

Weinstein said company officials have completed a reorganization plan which would allow the company to pay off its creditors and keep its present management. He said the rubbish-hauling company was netting more than $100,000 a month, and was on the verge of settling claims against it and bringing itself out of bankruptcy.

“It’s a very complicated plan that I can only briefly describe,” he said. “But generally speaking, the plan would attempt to pay all creditors in full and the company would remain with the current owners.”