Indiana firm buys company's assets
Published Online Aug 10, 2005
By DON DODSON
News-Gazette Staff Writer

CHAMPAIGN - A Wirco official says state assistance was vital in helping the company buy the assets of Alloy Engineering & Casting in Champaign and preserving most of its 94 jobs.
Chad Wright, vice president for operations of Avilla, Ind.-based Wirco, said his company initially considered moving Alloy's equipment to Indiana. "But with the incentives offered, the best way to go was to keep it in the local community," Wright said this morning.
Wirco acquired the assets of Alloy, which operates a plant at 1700 W. Washington St., at midnight Friday and hired 89 of Alloy's 94 employees. "We gave everyone about a 2 percent pay increase," Wright said, noting that many employees have worked at Alloy for 20 or 30 years. "There are a lot of second-generation and third-generation people ... whose brother or father or uncle worked here," he said.
The state of Illinois offered Wirco nearly $700,000 in state assistance to help the company buy Alloy's assets. The incentives included corporate income tax credits, job training funds and other benefits, such as sales tax exemptions and enterprise zone tax credits.
In a release today, Gov. Rod Blagojevich said: "By partnering with Wirco, we're not only ensuring that good jobs are staying in Champaign, but helping position an innovative company for future growth."
Wright said Wirco was very familiar with Alloy, having been a customer of the company for decades."We were their seventh-largest customer last year," he said.
Wirco learned several months ago that General Motors Acceptance Corp. had foreclosed on Alloy and that the company's assets were for sale.
"A couple other of Alloy's competitors were interested in buying the place and shutting it down," Wright said. "We were the only outfit that wanted to buy the assets and continue to run the foundry."
Wirco plans to make "sizable investments in new equipment and new machinery to modernize the place," Wright said. "One of the three casting lines closed seven months ago, and there was a sizable layoff then. We'll be selling that equipment and investing into the original foundry."
Wirco is a family-owned firm that was started in the 1960s by Wright's grandfather, Joseph Wright, and is now overseen by Wright's father, company President D.L. Wright. Aside from the Champaign plant, Wirco's only other plant is in Avilla, a town about 20 miles north of Fort Wayne, Ind.
Most of Alloy's products are used by the heat-treating industry, Wright said. Alloy had about $15 million a year in revenues and has a weekly payroll of about $60,000, he added.
Jeanne Gustafson, executive director of the Champaign County Economic Development Corp., said she was "really thrilled" the Wirco deal went through.
"The state was aggressive in putting together a package that saved a lot of jobs. It was greatly appreciated," she said.
Casey Rooney of the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission said his office has offered Wirco the opportunity for a low-interest loan of up to $150,000, and the offer remains in "the talking stages."
Wright also said Champaign Mayor Jerry Schweighart told him he'd see what he could do to allow Wirco a new entrance off Mattis Avenue, so semis don't have to enter through the residential neighborhood to the south.
Company President D.L. Wright said Alloy's business "fits very nicely with what we do. We're on the fabrication side of high nickel-chrome alloy components for the heat treating industry, and there's also a casting side, which Alloy does."
"The Alloy name is highly recognizable and is a very highly-thought-of nameplate," he added.
The Wrights described the deal as a "multimillion-dollar transaction" but would not be more specific.