Whirlpool Property Offer Withdrawn
Nov 29, 2012 (Menafn - Times Record - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --The tentative offer by Canada-based Infinity Asset Solutions to purchase Whirlpool Corp.'s vacant Fort Smith plant has been withdrawn, a Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce official said Thursday.
"I can confirm the deal with Infinity is not going to go through," said Tim Allen, Chamber chief operating officer.
Allen said details of the transaction have been hard to get, because representatives of Whirlpool and Infinity have not returned calls.
Neither company responded to the Times Record's requests for information and comment Thursday afternoon.
Affinity, a company specializing in the disposal of assets and public and private companies, was negotiating the deal with Benton Harbor, Mich.-based Whirlpool in September. Whirlpool officials mistakenly reported the sale of the property, office furniture and manufacturing equipment left behind by Whirlpool had been completed, with closing scheduled by the end of the year.
The initial reports were replaced with a statement reporting the facility was "under contract and subject to due diligence."
Allen said Thursday, "We never stopped marketing the building." He said efforts continue to find a suitable buyer for the 2.19 million-square-foot facility at 6400 Jenny Lind Road and that parties with an interest have been identified.
But Allen said the sale of the property is secondary to efforts to find jobs for the workers displaced by the shutdown.
The Fort Smith facility opened in 1962 under the ownership of the Norge Co. The Norge plant manufactured freezers, refrigerators and air conditioners. Whirlpool bought the facility in 1966 and expanded operation.
Whirlpool laid off more than 800 employees when the plant closed in June. The factory employed 4,600 people as recently as six years ago. Production of built-in refrigerators that occurred in Fort Smith was moved to a Whirlpool facility in Amana, Iowa. The company's side-by-side refrigerator line was relocated to a plant in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico.
___ (c)2012 Times Record (Fort Smith, Ark.) Visit Times Record (Fort Smith,
Ark.) at www.swtimes.com Distributed by MCT Information Services
Copyright (C) 2012, Times Record, Fort Smith, Ark.
