The assets of Cowan Plastics LLC, a Providence company that billed itself as the oldest injection molder in Rhode Island, were sold at a Nov. 14 auction run by Joseph Finn Co. Inc. of Newton, Mass.
All the equipment - including 16 presses with clamping forces up to 500 tons, and the contents of a tooling shop - was sold for an amount that was 10-15 percent above the expected value, according to Steven Finn, vice president of Joseph Finn Co. He declined to give a specific total.
Finn said the auction was well-attended, with about 100 participants on-site and another 50 participating via the Internet. He said bidders were from all over the U.S. but ``much of the equipment will be absorbed in New England.''
Cowan's assets were taken over by a secured creditor, Bank of America Securities LLC of New York, in mid-September after Cowan defaulted on loan agreements.
The company was founded in Massachusetts in 1946 and moved to Rhode Island in 1948. William Dessel and his father-in-law, Richard Oster, bought the assets out of receivership in August 2001. However, the company faltered again when it lost its largest customer, American Biophysics Corp. of North Kingston, R.I.