RE:SKY Thank goodness they sold the RV business. It buys more time for the MFG. Homes segment and gives SKY a better chance for profitability IMO. This should keep me out the Picks of the qtr. Cellar, this QTR.
Elkhart-based Skyline shedding RV unit, selling to Evergreen
The announcement was made Friday but terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed.
Don Emahiser, president of Skyline Corp's RV Group, stands before one of the company's new travel trailer brands, the Trident, Monday, Sept. 15, 2014 as his staff set up its display for last week's RV Open House Week outside the RV/MH Hall of Fame. Skyline announced Friday, Sept. 26 that it's selling the RV side of its business to Middlebury-based Evergreen RV. (The Elkhart Truth/file photo)
An embattled longtime Elkhart recreational vehicle and manufactured housing maker is spinning off its underperforming RV division and selling it to a growing upstart.
Skyline Corp. is selling its RV business to Middlebury-based Evergreen RV, the companies announced Friday, Sept. 26. Skyline will continue to make manufactured housing.
“I am very excited to be acquiring the RV division from Skyline,” Kelly Rose, Evergreen RV’s chairman of the board, said in a press release. “Mr. Art Decio has been a longtime friend of mine and a person who I hold in the highest esteem and respect.”
The move comes as Skyline recently announced that an independent audit found substantial doubt that the company could continue operating with its heavy losses and declining capital, and despite Skyline’s vow to turn things around with a yet-to-be-announced plan that included the release of three new RV brands for 2015 at last week’s RV Open House Week. Skyline has lost more than $129.5 million over the past eight years, and hasn’t turned a profit since 2006.
Skyline has focused more heavily on manufactured housing than RVs in recent years. Of its $191.7 million in net sales for the current fiscal year, $145.9 million — or 76 percent — came from manufactured housing, while $45.9 million (the other 24 percent) was derived from RVs. Total net sales were down 29 percent from 2010’s $136.2 million, when the MH/RV ratio was 66 percent to 34 percent.
But the company’s manufactured housing sales from January through June were up 53 percent compared to that period a year ago, in an industry whose sales only grew by 7 percent during that time.
Skyline founder Decio is still the publicly traded company’s largest shareholder with 17 percent of the stock.
Skyline has signed a letter of interest in the sale, but both companies have yet to negotiate and execute terms of the deal.
To read more:
Middlebury-based EverGreen RV rose from ashes of Great Recession
Elkhart's Skyline Corp. posts eighth consecutive multi-million losses ahead of RV Open House
Evergreen rose from the ashes of the Great Recession. Industry veterans Rose and Mike Schoeffler funded the startup in late 2008, assembling executives from other companies that closed during the crisis. The company last year was the fastest-growing of the industry’s 15 largest manufacturers, according to Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Statistical Surveys Inc.
Rose said the company will try to retain all of the employees at Skyline’s last remaining RV plant in Bristol.
“Obviously the most important issues that face us immediately are retaining the very loyal employees of Skyline as well as solidifying and building on the tremendous dealer body that has partnered with Skyline over the decades,” Rose said.
It’s not the first time Rose has given new life to competitors who’ve struggled. In late 2011 Evergreen hired executives from the recently closed Carriage Inc. to launch its new high-end fifth wheel division, Lifestyle Luxury RV.
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