Dive Brief:
- B.P. Greer Recycling Inc., a Reidsville, NC buyer and seller of scrap metal for commercial use, has filed for Chapter 11 reorganization. With assets between $1 million and $10 million and debts between $10 million and $50 million, the company owes $93 million to its largest creditor, Carolina Bank, which the company is unable to pay, according to filings. Collectively, B.P. Greer owes tens of thousands to Rockingham County Tax Department, Sparks and Sons Service Stations, and Berkshire Hathaway Homestate Cos.
- Charles M. Ivey III, attorney for B.P. Greer, said the hard hit to the scrap metal industry is largely responsible for the company’s revenue decline from $36.2 million in 2013, to $20 million this year, according to Triad Business Journal.
- Ivy said the court approved the sale of the majority of B.P.'s assets, likely to Foss Industrial recycling, in a bidding process for $2.4 million. The company is owned by Foss Recycling, a full-service scrap metal recycling business in North Carolina and Virginia.
Dive Insight:
"The scrap metal industry right now is absolutely getting killed," said Charles M. Ivey III, attorney for B.P. Greer. "It’s not just Greer. It’s all small recyclers getting squeezed because of the worldwide drop-off in demand for scrap metal."
Even the large companies are squeezed by a weakened metal market, evidenced through a Duke University survey released earlier this year, where two of every three big U.S. exporters said the appreciation of the dollar has hurt their business.
The condition of the once robust niche has got U.S. scrap firms, large and small, thinking of ways to transform themselves, as the demand for metal plummets in an unpredictable market.
