Your access to premium content.
USER NAME: 
PASSWORD: 
   • Register   • Info   • Help

News & Moves: March 24, 2008

Curious about what's going on in the housing industry? You've come to the right place

By Jennifer Powell, Staff Writer
March 24, 2008
GIANTS

Sidebars:
Kimball Hill Fights for Solvency

They're building a new Innovention Dream House, but remember the original House of Tomorrow at Disneyland? Check it out on YouTube: Video 1 and Video 2.

Taylor Morrison is the exclusive home building partner of Disneyland Resort's Innoventions Dream Home. The Dream Home is a modern-day successor to the park's original House of Tomorrow, which closed in 1967. The home builder will join Microsoft, HP and others in the development and design of the approximately 5,000 square foot home, created to showcase current and future technology in one complete package. The home will debut in late May.

Sandy Dunn

Sandy Dunn, president of Point Pleasant, W. Va.—based B.J. Builders, was elected president of NAHB during the association's International Builders' Show in Orlando, Fla. Dunn is a home builder who has provided affordable housing in West Virginia for more than 30 years. She has held leadership positions in home builders associations at the local, state and national level and within NAHB. Her plans for 2008 include working with the nation's lawmakers to implement policies that will resolve the credit crunch and revitalize home building.

90: The number of years Philadelphia-based Orleans Homebuilders has been building homes. According to the company, more than 85,000 homes erected since its start in 1918.

Meyers Builder Advisors, a full-service real-estate consulting and

Mary Lisa Wahlfeldt
advisory firm headquartered in Corona del Mar, Calif., recently opened a new outlet in Downers Grove, Ill., that will serve as the company's Midwest regional office. Heading the branch is Lance Ramella, principal, and Mary Lisa Wahlfeldt, managing director.

Mike Farrah

Mike Farrah is the new power tool division president for TTI-North America. Farrah will have full responsibility for the business as it relates to the Ryobi and Ridgid brands, including operations, product development, sales and marketing.

GE Money and Masco Builder Cabinet Group announced a new multi-year relationship to provide financing to homeowners purchasing the group's Merillat brand of cabinetry. The program is being offered through GE Money's Sales Finance unit and includes two financing options: GE Money's Projectline Plus program, which provides revolving credit terms, and the Projectloan program, which offers homeowners an installment

David Stapleton
loan financing option.

Moosic, Pa.-based Azek Building Products, a PVC product manufacturer, has acquired Composatron Manufacturing of Toronto, Canada. Composatron manufactures residential railing systems under the Premier and Trademark brands.

David Stapleton joins Homefed Corp. as manager of acquisitions. The Carlsbad, Calif.-based company develops large-scale communities and

Mark J. O'Brien

urban infill projects.

Walter Industries announced the restructuring of JWH Holding Co. Thirty six underperforming Jim Walter Homes sales centers will close. The hope is to offset the impact of lower sales volumes with annualized reductions in operating expenses in the range of $26 million to $28 million. "After careful consideration of the performance of each branch in our system and the challenging operating environment facing the entire home building industry, we came to the difficult decision to close nearly half of our branches," Mark J. O'Brien, chairman and CEO of JWH Holding Company, said in a press release.

 

Kimball Hill Fights for Solvency

Earlier this year, Kimball Hill Homes Chairman David K. Hill said getting impact fees lowered at Settlers Ridge in Sugar Grove, Ill., is vital to his firm's survival (Professional Builder, February 2008). He wasn't bluffing.

The Rolling Meadows, Ill.-based firm recently defaulted on a $500 million credit line and acknowledged losing $220.5 million last year. Auditor Deloitte & Touche reported "substantial doubts about whether the company will be able to continue as a going concern."

Kimball Hill ranked No. 29 in last year's Giant 400, with $1.6 billion in fiscal 2006 housing revenues on 4,079 closings. But in fiscal 2007, revenues fell to $833.3 million on just 3,246 closings. However, Kimball Hill is not going down without a fight.

The firm got a reprieve from lenders in February, and financiers agreed to lend it $10 million until mid-March. The company then hired New York-based consultants Alvarez & Marsal North America to consider its options. The privately-held firm took on a heavy debt load to ride the long housing boom from Chicago into 12 markets in seven states. The current housing slump made that debt untenable. Kimball Hill has since pulled out of Florida, closed its mortgage operation and cut more than 40 percent of its jobs. Some Chicagoans expect Kimball Hill to dump all out-of-state operations to concentrate on the market it knows best.

But nearly 50 percent of the firm's 2007 revenues came from Texas. Moreover, Texas markets offer the firm the opportunity to buy retail lots from developers. Kimball Hill has always developed its own land in Chicago, a much more capital-intensive market. David Hill now says he has the financing to last into April: "I'd say we have a 50-50 chance to survive," he opines. But Sugar Grove better cut those impact fees.


© 2008, Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Talk Back

There are no comments posted for this article.

POST A COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE


 

Advertisement