Assets of financially troubled automotive parts maker North American Plastics Co. Ltd. of Wallaceburg, Ontario, will be auctioned March 6-8 at the company's site. Danbury Sales Inc. of Toronto recently advertised the auction, but did not have an equipment list when reached by a reporter.
North American Plastics filed for bankruptcy in October after operating for several years in receivership, according to Stuart Wood, Wallaceburg town manager. The firm owes the town taxes, part of which Wood expects to collect after the auction.
North American Plastics injection molded and chrome plated auto parts. It was the center of a legal dispute beginning in 1991 soon after a slim majority of the company was purchased by Dale Integrated Technologies of Detroit.
A 49.5 percent interest was held by Detroit's Marguerite Kremer Ladney and her children.
DIT officials got court approval in 1991 for North American Plastics to bypass bankruptcy in a move that would have eliminated Kremer Ladney's interest in the parts producer and sold it to DIT. Her lawyers filed a restraining order against the proposal.
Wood said the transfer of assets in the proposal never got funding. Lack of cash flow prevented North American Plastics from growing, which led to its bankruptcy, Wood said in a telephone interview.
Paul Pickering of London, Ontario, North American Plastics' trustee in bankruptcy, did not return telephone calls.
Robert Davis and Eric Lewis were partners and owners of DIT and former officials with North American Plastics. They did not return calls left with DIT, now called Dale Packaging, or Polymeric Processes Inc. of Tecumseh, Mich., an auto parts firm formerly owned by DIT and now called Dale Technology.