Goodbye, Grabasa?
BADJOZ, Spain – The lengthy final act to the saga of Spanish stone producer Grabasa may finally be at an end.
Focus Piedra reports this week that the latest effort to purchase all of Grabasa’s assets out of bankruptcy failed in Spanish Commercial Court, as no bids appeared for the entire lot. The starting price was €2.4 million.
As a result, the machinery, buildings, quarry rights and other assets will be sold in separate lots in a process to be announced by the commercial court in September, according to Focus Piedra. The final auction will likely occur in October.
The piecemeal sale of Grabasa will end a long struggle to bring the company back after it closed in 2011. The company, which began business in 1975, produced premium dimensional stone and averaged more than €6 million in annual sales in its last five years of operation.
In 2015, Fairmont Resources of Mississauga, Ontario, began attempts to purchase Grabasa’s assets for €4.275 million. However, the deal fell apart in mid-2016 when Fairmont didn’t put up the full deposit amount required by Spanish courts.
Later in 2016, Rocksphere Granites LLC of India struck a deal to purchase the assets for €3.111 million, according to Focus Piedra. That deal also failed due to lack of full payment for the whole of Grabasa, which included land, machinery, vehicles, a 452,000 ft² processing plant and 22 mining leases.
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