Peninsula Plywood Raises More Funds
Peninsula Plywood will receive about half of a $500,000 grant which it will need to stay afloat.
The City is expecting $212,500 this week from the state Department of Commerce. In order to receive the rest of the grant money, PenPly will need to raise $470,000 over the next two months.
The City is expecting $212,500 this week from the state Department of Commerce. In order to receive the rest of the grant money, PenPly will need to raise $470,000 over the next two months.
posted by Tom Harper at 1:04 AM
10 Comments:
Here is a great opportunity for people to put their money where their mouth is, and invest in Port Angeles!
The PDN article does a good job in summarizing many of the debts Pen Ply owes to public entities. Reading between the lines, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that throwing more taxpayer money at the problem will only result in it being wasted. The mill management apparently has no qualms about defaulting on obligations. How much more in taxes and utility bills will local citizens be paying because of this failing enterprise? The losses of utility revenue will have to be spread across all the rate payers.
I feel so sorry for the employees.
Better to divide the Half-million dollars among the workers, and shutter the place now, before the managers run up even greater bills that will go unpaid.
What a contrast of articles in today's PDN. Armstrong Marine is making money hand over fist and needs waterfront space in Port Angeles in order to expand its business (and bring more jobs). It apparently has never needed or taken government handouts. It simply knows how to run a profitable business.
Pen Ply sits on prime waterfront property, is not a waterfront dependent industry, isn't paying its rent to the Port, is hundreds of thousands of dollars in default on its utility bills and other debts --- yet state and local politicians support giving Pen Ply even more public subsidies?!?
The answer to both problems seems so obvious: evict Pen Ply and lease the property to Armstrong! The workers at Pen Ply will lose their jobs soon, anyway, unfortunately. Hopefully many of them can be hired by the expanding Armstrong Marine.
If you cover a dead fish with hundred dollar bills, it'll still smell like a dead fish. Pen Ply is a big, bloated dead fish. Why, why, why are our local so-called leaders pouring (which is to say wasting) tax dollars into an enterprise that is so obviously a failure??? No plan, no clue, no hope. Thank God it's an election year.
I told you all a year ago pen ply would never make it. now they are over 500k in arrears, and several million in debt.
If the shareholder can cough up 230k I suggest they cough up enough to pay all their debt and file chapter 7 bankruptcy
Capitalist said...
I told you all a year ago pen ply would never make it. now they are over 500k in arrears, and several million in debt.
If the shareholder can cough up 230k I suggest they cough up enough to pay all their debt and file chapter 7 bankruptcy."
So, why would Munro and (presumably) other investors continue to put money into Pen Ply? I agree with you that it is a failing enterprise, but, I'm curious as to what the game plan is for these guys? Any ideas? Is there an unseen advantage for these "private" folks to continue to throw their money at the sinking ship?
Anon 10:28
Because they have creditors to settle up with I.e. The Port, the city, and the state.
unsecured creditors are screwed
Capitalist said...
Anon 10:28
Because they have creditors to settle up with I.e. The Port, the city, and the state.
unsecured creditors are screwed."
I'm not getting why "private investors" would continue to put money into this sinking ship. Yes, I can see why the city would help get these grants from the Feds/State, and demand they get some of the grant funding to repay the debts PenPly has incurred. That makes sense.
Are Grant Munro and the other "investors" "secured" ? Or are they thinking their investments so far will be "secured" by these taxpayer grants, and they'll be re-paid before the thing collapses?
Maybe some or all of the investors are using the PenPly property as a staging area for their log export business, and if they can keep PenPly limping along for another few months without paying rent to the Port, the other interests of the investors will benefit.
Take a look at that photo of the Pen Ply property in the PDN, and notice all of the logs piles. They may have been debarked by PenPly's machinery, but I'd wager that they are not stacked there to be used in making plywood.
Just read in the PDN that the Port will be auctioning privately owned boats because the owners are delinquent on their moorage rental payments. The Port said the rent debts are usually less than $3000 per boat, but the Port is seizing the boats because it has an obligation to protect the taxpayers' purse.
What a laugh! The Port cares about protecting the taxpayers?!?!? How many thousands of dollars is Pen Ply in arrears on its rent, without the Port seizing its poperty? How much public money was the Port only too happy to waste on HarborWorks?
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