Real Estate Owned by United Furniture Auction Cancelled 

July 25, 2023  by HFBusiness Staff in Business Strategy, Industry   

The bankruptcy auction that was scheduled was cancelled as stated in a Notice of Cancellation of Auction with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Mississippi Aberdeen Division.  

According to the filing, the Trustee has determined that no Auction will be held with respect to the sale and that the Stalking Horse Bid is the highest and best bid for all parcels.

The parcels included, will involve 15 properties, 11 in Mississippi. Four are in the Piedmont Triad:

—315-325 Kettering Road, High Point.

—3761 Old Glenola Road, Trinity.

—100 United Furniture Drive, Lexington.

—401 W. Hanes Mill Road, Winston-Salem.

Phoenix Acquisition LLC, a company that specializes in repurposing industrial sites, has made the stalking horse bid of $65 million for all of the properties, which total 626 acres with nearly 5 million square feet of manufacturing, warehouse and distribution space.

United Furniture has filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court to terminate its leases on other properties and abandon its property left in those buildings, including at 5252 Glenola Industrial Drive, High Point, and a property leased from Klaussner Furniture on Lewallen Road, Asheboro.

According to the article on Yahoo Finance and the High Point Enterprise, in July 2022, the company announced it was closing its 315 Kettering Road facility in High Point, which did business as Royal Development Metal Stamping, and laying off 72 people. It also laid off 199 manufacturing employees at its 401 Hanes Mill Road plant in Winston-Salem and converted that facility to an East Coast distribution center.

Those moves came a month after it fired its three top executives and restructured its sales operations.

Shortly before midnight the day before Thanksgiving, all employees were sent an email telling them not to report to work, and about an hour later they were sent another announcing that all employees were being fired, citing "unforeseen business circumstances."

United Furniture, which had become one of the largest furniture companies in the country, did not file a notice with any state where it operated that it planned any mass layoffs, as required by the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. A number of lawsuits by former employees are pending in federal court.

United purchased the Lane brand in 2017 from High Point-based Heritage Home Group.

According to the Notice of Cancellation of Auction filing, the hearing previously scheduled in the Notice of Sale will still be held on Tuesday, August 1 at 1:30pm CT.