Vt. Wood Energy Assets Go To Auction

The good news for creditors is that the assets of Vermont Wood Energy Co., sold for $63,385 Thursday

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Vt. Wood Energy Assets Go To Auction

By Brent Curtis Staff Writer
Published: August 28, 2009

Caption: Thomas (left) and Toby Hirchak of Thomas Hirchak Co. auction off Vermont Wood Energy assets in Brandon on Thursday. Cassandra Hotaling / Rutland Herald

The good news for creditors is that the assets of Vermont Wood Energy Co., sold for $63,385 Thursday.

The bad news is that sum pales in comparison to the bankrupt company's $4 million debt to more than 1,000 commercial and consumer creditors.

Just about everything that wasn't nailed down went on the block Thursday 115 lots from locations in Rutland and Brandon.

The commercial auction proved to be a buyer's paradise with trucks, forklifts and trailers selling for no more than $4,000. Most of the heavy equipment sold for much less. Only a machine grinder inside the warehouse at 1 Tubbs Ave. in Brandon broke the five figure mark, selling for $13,000.

"I think most of the guys here see an opportunity to get some deals," said local masonry business owner Angelo Tedesco.

Tedesco was looking for a flatbed trailer and that's what he got a 1989 Dorsey model for just more than $2,000.

Some of the trucks went even cheaper. A pair of Freightliner truck tractor one that ran, the other towed to the site sold for $3,500 total. A 2000 Ford box truck with about 65,000 miles on the engine sold for $2,800.

A dust collection system standing more than two stories high with air ducts big enough to drive a compact car through sold for $1,000.

The leftover Bixby stoves at the Rutland site sold at prices ranging from $750 to $1,150 except for one stove that auctioneers scratched from the list after they realized someone snuck in before the auction and stole it.

Under the terms of a notice of intent filed by trustee John Canney in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, the auctioneer will collect 9 percent of the gross proceeds of the sale equal to $5,704.65 of the $63,385 auction.

Canney could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The auction removed the last physical traces of Vermont Wood Energy, which just a little more than a year ago was attempting to bring both affordable heat and a new industry to Rutland.

Luis Algarin, the company's principal owner, promised pellets at $199 per ton for life for some of his clients. He also announced plans to relocate a pellet stove manufacturing business to Rutland from Minnesota along with plans to build a wood pellet mill in Vermont moves he predicted would create as many as 600 jobs by the fall of 2008 and another 500 jobs by 2011.

But Algarin's goals, which he said were altruistically motivated, ended in legal battles with Bixby Energy Systems in Ramsey, Minn., and with customer complaints to the state Attorney General's Office, which imposed strict guidelines on the company.

At the end of April, Algarin filed for bankruptcy.

Additional Information

Web Site: http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20090828/NEWS04/908280353/0/NEWS01

Category: Forestry>Industry Trends

Region: Vermont

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