Columbus McKinnon Corporation, a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of material handling products, on June 29 announced that it completed the sale of its approximately 240,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in
Net proceeds to Columbus McKinnon for the sale of the property were approximately $4.8 million, which will be applied to reduce debt in its fiscal 2008 second quarter which ends on September 30. The company will realize a deferred gain totaling $800,000 over the life of the lease agreement.
Timothy T. Tevens, president and CEO of Columbus McKinnon, said, "The sale and leaseback of our Duff-Norton facility generates almost $5 million of additional cash for debt reduction, while keeping our Duff-Norton operations in its long-time location and eliminating the burden of managing and maintaining a large property. Primarily through our lean manufacturing efforts, we reduced the space required for Duff-Norton by almost 40 percent. We anticipate annual savings of approximately $100,000 as a result of leasing back only the portion of the building that we need vs. full ownership.
"This transaction adds to a series of sales of surplus and underutilized real estate, which have generated $18.3 million of proceeds since July 2003. Combined with the recently announced redemption of the remaining $22.1 million of our 10 percent Senior Secured Notes Due 2010 to occur in the second quarter, this sale further enables the execution of our debt reduction initiative consistent with our strategy to continue to improve our capital structure."
