![]() Parks, who has an office at the company's headquarters where he is a part-time consultant, was called on to help. ''Besides using savings and borrowing from relatives, I added $12,000 by loading to the hilt my credit lines on three major credit cards,'' Mr. Then, the Baltimore Economic Development Corporation agreed, with the City Council's approval, to provide $2.1 million in revenue bonds. Haysbert and five nonmanagement employees. ![]() David, vice president for manufacturing, Mr. Choksi, vice president and treasurer, George F. 17, 1980.''įirst, $400,000 was raised by three members of Parks's management -Aroon S. It took plenty of hard work, and the deal was concluded on Nov. ''Then we had 30 days to get the financing. ''We had 15 days to make an offer, and after some negotiating the cost was fixed at $2.5 million,'' said Mr. The time stipulated was 45 days, and the price was $3 million. David gave Parks's management the option to reacquire the company. But I didn't want to see them thrown into some package deal.'' Mr. On one level, it was too small for us, and we had no expertise in its field. ''But we had held off on a fast move largely because we regarded Parks as a special case. Just recently we've sold Sinai Kosher and Louis Sherry. ''We soon decided to dispose of all three, and even had a prospective buyer for them. ''When we acquired the Norin Corporation on July 11, 1980,'' said Joseph David, a vice president of Canellus, ''we got not only Parks but two other food processors, Sinai Kosher Foods Inc., of Chicago and Louis Sherry Inc. When Canellus, a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian Pacific based in Syracuse, N.Y., decided last fall to dispose of Parks. IN 1980, the Canellus Acquisition Company acquired Norin. One proposal, he said, is to establish a plant in the Liberty City area of Miami, which is a severely depressed region largely inhabited by minorities. Parks, now looking to expand, is surveying Richmond, Atlanta and Miami, Mr. Sales for 1981 are projected at $17 million, based on $16.5 million recorded through November, and the company should be back in the black with profits of $300,000, he said. ![]() Haysbert remained as chief executive.īut now, with local people again in control, a turnaround is under way, according to Mr. At the time, a Norin executive ran the subsidiary, while Mr. Furthermore, he said, Norin siphoned off the company's $2 million cash reserve and assessed Parks $1 million annually for such corporate services as insurance and brokerage, further weakening the company's profitability. Haysbert attributed the slippage in part to marketing misadventures, such as the introduction of new products without adequate studies of production requirements and sales potential. Then last year the company registered a loss of $300,000. Sales began to lag behind rising production costs, so the work force was trimmed to 220 by 1980. Parks, then the board chairman and one of the two major stockholders, negotiated with Norin a $5 million merger in March of that year. There were 300 employees early in 1977, before Mr. Parks Jr., had but two helpers, the company grew until, with sales of $13.6 million in 1976, it stood seventh among the top 100 black-owned businesses as compiled by Black Enterprise magazine. Haysbert Sr., chief executive, and other Parks associates purchased the business from a division of Canadian Pacific that had acquired the Norin Corporation, the conglomerate that had initially acquired Parks.įrom its beginning in 1951, when the founder, Henry G. And once again, a year since its liberation, sales are rising and Parks is making money. It is being run by managers who were there when the company was taken over and were there to retrieve it when the conglomerates had had enough. Today, Parks, a manufacturer many meat products besides sausage, is back on its own. And in 1980 for the first time, Parks lost money. Parks, however, became one of the thousands of companies in recent years that were devoured by conglomerates and its conglomerate owner in turn was devoured by another conglomerate. It was black-owned and black-run, one of the biggest such companies in the country. Another was its uncommon place among American corporations. Its more-Parks-sausages commercials were one reason. ![]() was one of those companies whose renown stretched far beyond its relatively small size.
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