Furniture producer PeopLoungers' future uncertain

Report: Company set to close

Heath Combs -- Furniture Today, June 10, 2009

MANTACHIE, Miss. — The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, citing unidentified industry sources, is reporting that motion upholstery producer PeopLoungers is closing for good.

Company officials have not returned phone calls to Furniture/Today. Calls to the PeopLoungers administrative offices in Mississippi were referred to The Finley Group, a turnaround firm based in Charlotte, N.C. which had been managing the company.

Capital Business Credit purchased PeopLoungers' assets out of bankruptcy court for about $6.5 million in late 2007.

Larry Crink, who joined the company last year as executive vice president of sales and marketing last year, declined to comment this week on the company's status, or to say whether he was still with PeopLoungers.

Industry sources have told Furniture/Today that it appears PeopLoungers was accepting no new business.

Armand J. Carrano, senior managing director of The Finley Group, was unavailable for comment this week, as was anyone at Capital Business Credit.

PeopLoungers went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2007 under pressure from its lenders. At the time, it owed its top 20 creditors nearly $5.7 million.

After the sale, Finley closed the company's 430,000-square-foot Nettleton, Miss., plant and consolidated operations into its 175,000-square-foot facility in Mantachie, about 20 miles away.

The Daily Journal reported that PeopLoungers' Mantachie plant, which employs 100 to 150 workers, would close today.