ST. GEORGE — Express Metal Fabricators St. George Steel Division has closed operations following the filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy by its parent company, Oklahoma-based Express Group Holdings.
The closure affects 97 workers in Utah, including approximately 70 employees at the St. George Steel plant at 1301 E. 700 North, with the remaining layoffs affecting the company’s Murray division in Salt Lake County.
The closure comes at a difficult time for employees during the holiday season with the loss of health benefits looming. The closure notice is affecting everyone up the line, including the company president.
“I terminated myself right along with everybody else, so I’m looking for a job just like everybody else,” Mike Housley, president of Express Metal Fabricators St. George Steel Division, said.
Due to the nature of the bankruptcy, no one at the company received any severance payment.
After the failure of at least one of Express Group Holdings’ subsidiary companies, the parent company was forced to cease operations and opted for outright liquidation, filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
However, the company’s St. George division had been operating in the black, Housley said.
“We’ve been profitable for many, many years that we were here,” he said, “and being part of a major corporation you’re at risk for the weakest link, and that’s really what happened here.”
Even though Express Metal Fabricators was still flush with contracts, Housley said, Express Group Holdings was operating at a loss and closed all of its subsidiaries.
Following its acquisition by Express Group Holdings in 2005, Housely said employee productivity and profitability were at some of the company’s highest points in its long history.
While some competitors exist in the region, such as S&S Steel Fabricators in Hurricane, Housley said the core of what St. George Steel did as a company was unmatched except by overseas competition.
Other company employees contacted by St. George News declined to comment on the closure.
The original St. George Steel facility opened in 1977, operating nearly 40 years before the closure.
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Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2016, all rights reserved.
This is absolutely tragic and my sympathy to those that are losing their jobs. it’s never a good time to lose a job but it does take a greater impact when this happens during the holiday season.
hopefully they will all find other employment soon
If the company was operating in the black ,
the local employees should bond together and
buy this local operation for pennies on the dollar at the bankruptcy sale .
If the local employees were able to operate at a profit under the parent company ,
then they should be able to do the same or better under their own banner .