Crucible Industries declares Chapter 11 bankruptcy

[Larrin]

There has been sustained interest regarding Crucible's bankruptcy and I thought I would take a moment to provide some detail as this is an area of familiarity for me. The following is taken from filings with the Court, which are a matter of public record. If someone can tell me how to upload a PDF, I will happily share them on the forum.

The following information is taken from three documents: the "First Day Affidavit," the "Schedules and Statement of Financial Affairs," and the "Sale Motion." The First Day Affidavit is a filing generally singed by the CEO providing general information about the company, its business, and why it is seeking bankruptcy protection. The Schedules and Statement of Financial Affairs are documents required to be filed with the Court listing, in great detail, the company's assets and liabilities. The Sale Motion lists the sale procedures for the sale of the company's assets.

The First Day Affidavit

After review, here are the interesting bits contained in First Day Affidavit:

[*]The corporate office is located in Cleveland, Ohio.
[*]The manufacturing facility is located in Solvay, New York.
[*]90% of its base material is scrap and revert.
[*]The company has 170 full time employees; unionized.
[*]Average weekly payroll for hourly employees is $155,000.
[*]Average bi-monthly salaries is $130,000.
[*]The company leases the manufacturing facility in Solvay from Syracuse Real Estate, LLC, which has common ownership with the company.
[*]Is the sole or nearly sole provider of specialty products for a number of its customers (none specifically listed).
[*]Bankruptcy is attributed to softening demand and price competitions with larger companies.
[*]In April 2024, it began marketing its assets for sale through the Caliber Group, LLC.
[*]Caliber sent promotional materials to 67 potential buyers, 18 of which executed an NDA, six of whom toured the facility, and four that made bids.

Schedules and Statement of Financial Affairs

Here is some information from the Schedules and Statement of Financial Affairs:

[*]The company does not own any real property.
[*]Has secured debt (i.e., bank debt with mortgage and/or security interest) of $21,433,992.
[*]Has unsecured debt (i.e., trade debt) of $11,273,768.
[*]Total debt of $32,707,761.
[*]Assets include raw materials, WIP, Intellectual Property, A/R valued at $27,937,761. (But value for IP is listed as unknown).
[*]Includes an Exhibit showing all trademarks and includes "REX," "10V," "15V," "CRU-Wear," "REX 121," "Magnacut," etc.
[*]Also shows patents it holds, only two of which are in the United States (Patent Nos. 7615123 and 7288156). (The patents only show the content of the alloy using google patents, not any identifying names. I will leave it to others to figure out what alloy they actually pertain to.) Interestingly, the longest patents it holds expires in 2028, most expire sooner than that.

The Sale Motion

Here is the pertinent information in the Sale Motion:

[*]Erasteel, Inc., is the stalking horse bidder. A stalking horse bidder agrees to buy the assets subject to higher and better bids.
[*]The stalking horse bid is not for all the assets of the company, only a very limited subset, including the CPM line of business, the IP, A/R, and Inventory.
[*]The stalking horse bid is, after adjustments, estimated to be between $11-12 million (the gross bid is appx. $17 million).
[*]A party who wishes to bid on the assets must become a "qualified bidder" by executing an CA, providing financial statements and other evidence it can perform and submit a bid that exceeds the stalking horse bid by appx. $620,000 (to cover the break up fee paid to Erasteel to serve as stalking horse bidder in the amount of $520,000 plus an additional $100,000).
[*]The bid deadline is January 30, 2025.
[*]The auction (if there is at least one bidder) is February 4, 2025.
[*]The hearing to approve the sale is February 6, 2025.
[*]The exhibits to the APA with Erasteel shows that it is purchasing inventory, WIP, A/R, and only the induction furnace, HIP equipment, and CPM melt shop tools but all other equipment and machinery located in Solvay is excluded. Based upon exhibits (which are interesting and place a value on inventory and WIP, it appears that Niagara, ZAPP, and Latrobe may be the company's biggest customers).
[*]The bidding procedures, however, allow a bidder to bid on all assets (or what it calls Lot 2 assets in the motion) or bid on a mix and match basis.

Hopefully you found this helpful to understand Crucible's bankruptcy. Happy to address any questions if you have any.

Where do you go to find these public records?

[Brock O Lee]

More CPM steels

[spydergoat]

Eric Glesser talks about this issue with Knifecenter in this SHOT show vid. Suggest ignoring the clickbait title it is actually worth 10 minutes if you wanna hear from an insider about the interplay between foundries, innovation, and knife making.

[Wartstein]

Eric Glesser talks about this issue with Knifecenter in this SHOT show vid. Suggest ignoring the clickbait title it is actually worth 10 minutes if you wanna hear from an insider about the interplay between foundries, innovation, and knife making.

Interesting insight Thanks for sharing!

Also like how Eric touches on and values the more "personal", almost "familial" aspects [don´t really know an English (not my native tongue) term for this...] of the industry

[jwbnyc]

Eric Glesser talks about this issue with Knifecenter in this SHOT show vid. Suggest ignoring the clickbait title it is actually worth 10 minutes if you wanna hear from an insider about the interplay between foundries, innovation, and knife making.

This was a very informative, and enjoyable, video. Thanks for posting it.

[SteveMidwest]

Thank you, Larrin.

So no Patent on the composition of MagnaCut then? Because it was 'not novel', and was 'obvious?'

AI explains:

"Steel compositions can be patented. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued patents for materials-related inventions, including steel compositions."

Explanation:
"Composition of matter.
A patent for a composition of matter can be granted for a material's constituents and their amounts. For example, a steel alloy with specific levels of alloying additions may be patentable."

"Novel and non-obvious
To be patentable, the invention must be novel, meaning it is not already known or used by others. It must also be non-obvious, meaning it cannot be an obvious modification of existing invention."

The Patents you mentioned above >

Patent No. 7615123 >

https://patents.justia.com/inventor/and ... cieszynski

Cold-work tool steel article
Patent number: 7615123
Abstract: A powder metallurgy cold-work tool steel article of hot isostatic compacted nitrogen atomized, prealloyed powder. The alloy of the article includes the addition of niobium, which combined with the use of gas atomization, results in a fine carbide size distribution. This in turn results in improved bend fracture strength and impact toughness. In addition, as a result of isostatic compaction of nitrogen gas atomized prealloyed powder a fine distribution of carbides results to obtain a microstructure that achieves both improved toughness and wear resistance.
Type: Grant
Filed: September 29, 2006
Date of Patent: November 10, 2009
Assignee: Crucible Materials Corporation
Inventors: Alojz Kajinic, Andrzej L. Wojcieszynski

Patent No. 7288156

https://patents.justia.com/inventor/yoichi-isago

Methods for cleaning a substrate
Patent number: 7288156
Abstract: The invention provides a water supplying apparatus and method thereof which has a high capacity of peeling and removing a disused material such as a resist film and the like, and can efficiently use water vapor. A water supplying apparatus for executing a washing process, a cleaning process and a working process of a subject, is provided with a water vapor body supplying means for supplying a water vapor body, and a water mist body supplying means for supplying a water mist body containing liquid water fine particles, and the structure is made such that said water vapor body and said water mist body are supplied to the subject by independently controlling said two means.
Type: Grant
Filed: January 10, 2006
Date of Patent: October 30, 2007
Assignee: Lam Research Corporation
Inventors: Yoichi Isago, Kazuo Nojiri, Naoaki Kobayashi, Teruo Saito, Shu Nakajima

[SAF-1]

SPYDERCO, save the day and Buy Crucible !!!

[Scandi Grind]

SPYDERCO, save the day and Buy Crucible !!!

If you are interested in hearing some of the reasons that wouldn't work out, there was some discussion here:

viewtopic.php?t=97739

[salimoneus]

25% tariff on steel just happened, wonder how that will affect this particular situation

[cabfrank]

.

[cabfrank]

Deleted. It was economic, not political, but may have been misconstrued.

[salimoneus]

25% tariff on steel just happened, wonder how that will affect this particular situation

yes this post was not political in any way. i realize there were tariffs on steel before at close to these levels, just wondering if this changes the game for the Crucible situation. for instance, does that make them more attractive to prospective buyers? could they possibly not sell and find investors to help keep them afloat, or it is already too late for that? etc...

[sal]

Does anyone know what happened with the auction?

sal

[Deadboxhero]

Does anyone know what happened with the auction?

sal

We find out tomorrow.
https://www.syracuse.com/business/2025/ ... block.html

[SAF-1]

Sal, buy Crucible !! You won’t regret it

[WilliamMunny]

Sal, buy Crucible !! You won’t regret it

What could go wrong….

Now if he could have purchased some of their IP and started a low overhead micro foundry that’s a different story. Hopefully someone will.

[cjk]

Does anyone know what happened with the auction?

sal

We find out tomorrow.
https://www.syracuse.com/business/2025/ ... block.html

It's tomorrow. Is there any news yet?

[Bolster]

. . .

[Deadboxhero]

Still waiting for the results of the bid deadline.

Y'all need to be patient.


https://cases.stretto.com/crucible/

[Deadboxhero]

February 25th 2025 is the day we are waiting to find out the outcome.