Stacy’s Greenhouses Files For Bankruptcy

Stacy's Greenhouses

Stacy’s Inc. has filed for Chaper 11 bankruptcy protection in order to facilitate an upcoming sale.

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“The process is going forward the way we had hoped,” says Stacy’s President Tim Brindley. “The court has approved a working budget to keep everything moving forward through July 26, and we have another hearing soon to approve a budget through August.”

With the company going through Chapter 11 proceedings, any sale will be an asset purchase rather than a sale of the company. The business will no longer carry the Stacy’s name.

“We have been in negotiations with a potential buyer for several months, and have a signed asset purchase agreement in place,” Brindley says. “Everything has to be approved by the courts and there are a lot of steps that still have to take place, but the goal is to have the sale complete by the end of August. The sale of Stacy’s will allow the new combined company to emerge as a very strong player in the nursery industry.”

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The potential buyer has pledged to keep 95 percent of Stacy’s current staff, a condition that was important to Brindley and his management team. “The end result is going to be positive for all of our employees. That was my first concern. They will be protected and taken care of in all of this,” he says. “That’s a very positive thing.”

Stacy’s customers should also experience continuity. Much of the company’s perennials-heavy mix would be new for the potential buyer, Brindley says, so they will be working together on continuing Stacy’s successful programs.

“They understand we have a lot of experience and expertise with what we do. We built the customer base and these categories and they see the value in continuing that. For all of our customers it’s going to be business as usual.”

Stacy’s serves retail stores in 24 states along the East Coast and into the Midwest. The operation includes a wholesale farm in York, S.C., garden centers in York and in Shelby, N.C., and a propagation center in Pendleton, S.C. Stacy’s Greenhouses is number 71 on Greenhouse Grower’s Top 100 Growers list, with 1,045,000 square feet of production area.

An article on HeraldOnline.com reports on the creditors with the largest amount of unsecured claims in the bankruptcy filing:
Express Seed of Cleveland, $1.35 million
Container Centralen of Winter Garden, Fla., $1.1 million
Sun Gro Horticulture of Chicago, $815,227
Bank of the West, Temecula, Calif., $547,912
Ednie Flowers Bulb of Fredon, N.J., unknown
East Jordan Plastics of East Jordan, Mich., $436,224

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Avatar for David Johanson David Johanson says:

funny how they win grower of the year a few days ago and then declare bankruptcy. so, does this mean great products (the BEST according to Greenhouse Growers award) are no good unless they price them so low the grower closes the door. Thank you big box retailers. Just keep lowering prices, shoving transportation costs down our throats, making us go to pay by scan, and making us take all the risks. Pretty soon you will have no choices to buy because we will all just close the doors and you can wish you would have treated us better. I guess that is the way of the world today though as the money keeps flowing to those that are already rich and the rest of us get poorer.

Avatar for yep yep says:

David Johanson spells it out EXACTLY the way it is. Big box stores take NO RISK and push everything off on the growers. The corporate bosses and buyers KNOW NOTHING about growing and just keep worrying about their bonuses.

Avatar for Paul devos Paul devos says:

I worked for stacy,s GREAT company GREAT PEOPLE VERY SAD Paul DeVos