Whispers: Fleetwood Towables On the Way Out?

Investment gurus and web wave makers, the Motley Fool, say that there's good news and bad news in Fleetwood land. In the second-quarter of this year the company was able to take a projected 6 cent per share loss to only a two cent loss. How'd they do it? Selling off properties helped--you'll recall that lots of Fleetwood employees got pink slips earlier this year when the company closed US and Canadian plants (and at the same time opened a plant in Mexico).

But another investor-pleaser was the fact the company's motorhome sales revenue went up, from $230.6 million to $263.8 million. Now about that bad news? In the same time period the company witnessed a huge tumble in "towable" sales revenue. From 104.1 million down to just $48 million. Motley Fool reports that one market analyst will be, "Looking for the company to provide more insight on whether it may sell or close its towables unit." Either one could mean a whole lot more out of work RV builders.

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Fleetwood May Say "Adios" to California

Smarting from declines in profits and sales of its towable RV's, industry giant Fleetwood Enterprises has told company planners to "explore" the possibility of relocating its operations out of Riverside county, California.

In an article appearing in the Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly, published in Indiana, locals are grinning broadly at the prospects that the big RV maker may decide Indiana's 'the place you ought to be,' and may reap financial benefits from such a move. The company has indicated they'd like to have their operations closer to their customer base, and adds that California is a far more expensive state to operate in.

Fleetwood has made plenty of news lately, and infuriated vast numbers of readers of this blog when, after closing a number of manufacturing plants in the US, followed up by opening an RV plant in Mexico.