Fireplace log maker files Ch. 11
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| May 21, 2004 |  View for printing |
Dellen Wood Products Inc. lists assets of $1.1 million, liabilities of $3.5 million
By Kim Crompton
http://spokanejournal.com/spokane_id=article&sub=1993
Dellen Wood Products Inc., a 43-year-old Spokane maker of fireplace logs, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Documents that the company has filed with U.S. Bankruptcy Court here list its total assets at about $1.1 million and its liabilities at about $3.5 million. More than $2.7 million of that amount, though, is owed to members of the Lentes family, which owns and operates the company, and the estate of a Lentes family member.
William E. Lentes, Dellen’s president, referred questions about the filing to the company’s chief financial officer, Gene Olsen, who said, “The company is still very viable. We just needed a little bit of time and space to take care of some things we need to deal with.” Olsen added that the company expects to emerge from the reorganization once it resolves those financial issues.
Bankruptcy Court documents indicate that Dellen’s board approved the filing after General Electric Capital Corp. began seizing some of Dellen’s assets to satisfy a federal court judgment involving an equipment lease.
General Electric is one of two creditors listed in the Bankruptcy Court documents as holding secured claims against Dellen totaling $254,000. Banner Bank is the other secured creditor.
The documents also list 22 creditors who hold unsecured nonpriority claims totaling $3.2 million. The largest of those creditors are the estate of Ellen Lentes, William Lentes’ late wife, at $1.6 million, and William Lentes, at $507,000. Also listed among those creditors are two of the couple’s sons, Richard and Randal Lentes, who are company shareholders and are owed $305,000 and $302,000, respectively.
Two years ago, Dellen sold off an operation that made wooden parts, called cut stock, for wood-frame window makers and had accounted for 95 percent of its revenues. The buyer, Pristina Pine LLC, leased about 110,000 square feet of floor space in Dellen’s complex at 3014 N. Flora, and hired about 70 of the 120 people who had worked for Dellen.
Dellen had specialized in production of pine industrial cut stock, using Ponderosa pine lumber that the company bought from sawmills and cut into various widths and lengths. It then sold that stock to window makers. The sale of that operation to Pristina left Dellen with just a division that makes compressed-wood fireplace logs, called Dellogs, that are sold at supermarkets and elsewhere.
A Dellen executive said shortly after the transaction that selling off the bulk of the company’s business was part of the long-term retirement plan of William Lentes, but that there were no plans to sell Dellen’s remaining assets.
Reader Comments:
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I met Bill Lentes over 30 years ago while working for one of his suppliers. Years later my son while working for my company did business with William E. Lentes at Dellen Wood Products. Bill Lentes is one the finest gentleman, astute businessmen, and mechanical geniuses I have ever met. He was the guiding power of Dellen Wood products which was always a very successful business under Bill’s management. It saddens me to see this company filing bankrupts but without the guidance of a quality captain like Bill any ship may end up on the rocks. |
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I heard someone cooked the books, what have you heard? --josie whales
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I heard, don't know if it is true, but that someone had a $500,000.00 dollar motor home with an oregon plate, inorder to pay less tax, anybody know anything about that? --disco dave
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