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Betters Gets 'Provisional' OK to Buy RG's Warren Mill
WARREN, Ohio – C.J. Betters Enterprises Inc. of Monaca, Pa., has received the “provisional” go-ahead Wednesday to pay $16 million for the assets of RG Steel’s hot strip mill here pending resolution of ArcelorMittal’s objection.
Arcelor Mittal, which operates the coke plant adjacent to RG’s hot roll mill on Pine Avenue S.E., wants to exercise its property easement rights and purchase option for the steel plant’s boiler and power house.
Following a lengthy hearing at U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., Judge Kevin J. Carey also approved the $72.5 million sale of RG’s Sparrows Point, Md., steel mill to Hilco Inc., an Illinois liquidator, and Environmental Liability Transfer Inc. of St. Louis, a redevelopment company. According to the Baltimore Sun, executives from both companies say their first priority will be “finding operators who will reopen parts or all of the mill.”
Likewise, Charles Betters, president of the development, liquidation, scrap and slag company that bears his name, says his first choice would be resume operations at RG Warren. “We’ll find a team, we’ll put it together,” he said last week, referring to his intentions.
The draft of the asset purchase agreement for RG Warren, filed Wednesday with bankruptcy court, bars Betters from removing any assets used in the steel production process for nine months after the sale closing date “so that a subsequent purchaser of the facility (or such assets) who intends to operate the facility (or such assets) as a going concern may operate the assets.”
During that nine-month time frame, CJ Betters “shall have no obligation to maintain the assets … and may allow them to fall into disrepair. Purchaser further agrees to make good faith efforts during such period to facility a sale of such assets to a purchaser who will resume steel production operations at the facility.”
Labor agreements negotiated by RG Steel and the United Steelworkers at all of the bankrupt companies facilities would terminate at the sale closing. Some 1,200 hourly workers remain furloughed at the Warren mill; 2,000 in Sparrows Point.
Also approved Wednesday were the $4.75 million sale of RG’s assets at its Yorkville plant to Esmark Steel Group; the $20 million sale of its Mingo Junction plan to a liquidator, Frontier Industrial Corp., and the $15 million sale of RG’s Steubenville mill to a scrap company, Strauss Industries of Wheeling, W.Va.
BACKGROUND: High Bidder for RG Warren Owns Abandoned LTV Site