Business as usual at local Briggs & Stratton as company sells assets, reorganizes

It will be business as usual at the local Briggs & Stratton plant as the manufacturer announced early Monday it’s selling assets and filing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization petition.

“Briggs & Stratton today announced it has filed voluntary petitions for a court-supervised reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code to address its debt obligations and facilitate the potential sale of the company,” said Rick Carpenter, vice president of corporate marketing and communications.

This step, Carpenter said, was identified as the “appropriate and necessary one to take to secure our business and financial success moving forward.

“We have reached an agreement with KPS Capital Partners to acquire essentially all of the company’s assets and assume certain customer, employee and vendor liabilities through a court-supervised sale process (known as a Section 363 process).”

Among other things, Carpenter said, the sale agreement is subject to higher or better bids from other potential purchasers.

Carpenter said liabilities to be assumed include rebates and allowances, warranties, employee accrued vacation and post petition vendor accounts payable.

“This process means we should be able to move quickly into and out of Chapter 11, and Briggs & Stratton will continue normal business operations throughout the process, and our products will continue to be produced, distributed, sold, serviced and fully backed,” Carpenter said.

Regarding Poplar Bluff’s operations, “I think the key thing to note is that the plan is to operate ‘business as usual’ through the reorganization process as we have DIP (debtor in possession) financing that allows us to fund the business to manufacture, including Poplar Bluff, and supply products to our customers. After the reorganization process we will be acquired by another company,” Carpenter explained.