The number of North Carolina employees being laid off by Heritage Home Group LLC may reach 861 by the end of the year.
Since filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy at the end of July, the High Point, North Carolina-based furniture company has acknowledged the looming layoffs as it searches for buyers of four company facilities and Heritage Home’s various businesses in notices sent to the North Carolina Department of Commerce.
Those notices are mandatory under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires companies to give a 60-day public notice of mass layoffs. When a WARN notice is filed, the state deploys a “Rapid Response team” within 48 hours to help the company and affected employees.
WARN notices sent by Heritage Home on Oct. 2 stated that 115 employees will be laid off at the company’s corporate headquarters and 34 employees will be laid off at its Thomasville distribution center – unless the company can find a buyer who will continue operations at those locations and offer affected individuals reemployment.
The company expects the permanent termination of those employees to begin at the start of December.
“A meeting is being held next week with company management to discuss early intervention and transitional services for HHG employees affected by the potential closing of both locations,” said Andrew Beal, information and communications specialist at the Department of Commerce’s Division of Workforce Solutions.
Notices sent Aug. 28 stated that Heritage Home would be laying off 712 employees as the company prepared to close its Lenoir upholstery and case goods facilities in Caldwell County. A Rapid Response team met with the company’s management in September to assess that situation.
“We deeply regret and understand the uncertainty this action will cause our valued employees and the community,” said Robert Albergotti, Heritage Home’s chief restructuring officer.
Heritage Home’s bankruptcy filing listed an estimated number of creditors owed money by the company’s businesses that fell somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000. That included a $14 million payment owed to FBI Wind Down Inc. and a $1 million payment to Ernst & Young.
On Sept. 28, the court approved a bid from RHF Investments Inc., the parent company of Century Furniture and Hancock, to acquire assets of the Hickory Chair, Maitland Smith, Pearson, and La Barge furniture brands from Heritage Home.
Those brands comprised Heritage Home’s luxury business segment. About 500 employees are connected to the luxury business and will become employees of RHF’s conglomeration of the brands, Hickory Chair LLC.
There were no competing bids and the transaction is expected to close on or before Oct. 12.
North Carolina has seen 9,649 employees laid off through WARN notices in 2018. The state’s 2018 WARN summary can be found here.
