PORTAGE, WIS. — Officials with Spara LLC say they have regained control of Lexington Logistics, a Wisconsin-based thermoformer that previously operated as TriEnda LLC.
In an April 23 news release, Lexington, Ky.-based Spara said that it "has immediately deployed a management team to assess and stabilize" Lexington Logistics, a 150-employee firm based in Portage, Wis. The release adds that Spara is collaborating with Fifth Third Bank, and that Mike Ceming has resigned as president of Lexington Logistics.
In November, financial firm Boston Finance Group of Clearwater, Fla., had removed five TriEnda executives and placed chief executive officer Curt Zamec on a leave of absence because of an unpaid loan. Spara had used the loan — which, according to court records, was for $6.7 million — to buy TriEnda in a foreclosure sale in June 2011.
In November, Boston Finance general counsel Jonathan Golden told Plastics News that Spara had not paid on the loan and that his firm "elected to exercise its lender remedies by exercising its voting rights" that were spelled out in the loan agreement.
"The action, we never would have taken, if Spara had just paid its loan," Golden said at the time. "If Spara had paid any amount, or worked out any sort of payment plan with us."
Golden could not be reached for comment on April 23. Spara officials had yet to respond to questions e-mailed to them by Plastics News. When Boston Finance took over Lexington Logistics in November, Golden and four other Boston Finance officials were installed as management.
At the time, Boston Finance's John Fernando was listed as the new president of Lexington Logistics. It is not clear when Ceming took over that role.
Lexington Logistics ranked as North America's 29th largest thermoformer in a recent Plastics News ranking. The firm's annual sales were estimated at $55 million.
According to the Spara release, Lexington Logistics occupies a 273,000-square-foot plant in Portage and specializes in the design and manufacture of heavy-gauge, single-sheet and twin-sheet plastic thermoformed products.