JANESVILLE — Jeff Weissbuch sat in a Rock County courtroom Tuesday afternoon to see the sale of Freedom Plastics and find out if he would lose his job.
The pipe handler watched a dozen attorneys and company executives negotiate the sale of Freedom Plastics for more than two hours, knowing they controlled his fate and the fate of 80 other employees.
“This is no the economy to be laid off in,” Weissbuch, 34, said. “It’s just been very rough on people, for employees and their families.”
He learned that Freedom Plastics’ assets would be sold to four companies for a total of about $11.5 million.
The employees’ jobs remain up in the air.
Decided in court Tuesday:
— Westlake Chemical of Houston will pay $6.3 million for the Janesville pipe manufacturing division.
— Harrington Corp. of Lynchburg, Va., will pay $1 million for the Janesville fabrication division.
— Silver-Line Plastics of Asheville, N.C., will pay $3.8 million for the Florida division.
— NACO Industries of Logan, Utah, will pay $400,000 for equipment in Idaho.
Judge Kenneth Forbeck approved the sale.
Freedom Plastics makes PVC pipes and fittings and supplies the wastewater, plumbing, irrigation and industrial markets. It’s suffered with the depressed construction economy and growing costs of materials.
Freedom Plastics entered a court-supervised receivership sale in early February in hopes it could stay in business in Janesville.
Then the company’s receiver notified the state that more than 100 Freedom employees in Wisconsin and Florida would be laid off in April unless a buyer steps forward.
Georgia Gulf Corp. and Silver-Line Plastics were the high bidders at the first auction for Freedom’s assets.
But a second auction was held Monday because the first bid was “substantially less” than the $20 million Freedom owes the bank.