Toledo firm is outbid for Alabama company

10/7/2009

The sale of bankrupt Moore-Handley Inc., of Pelham, Ala., was scheduled to close this week — without a Toledo firm that had struck a deal to buy the Alabama hardware wholesaler.

Bostwick-Braun Co., a 150-year-old Toledo hardware wholesaler, said last month after striking a preliminary deal to buy the firm that it would double in size to more than $200 million annually in sales.

But, according to the Birmingham Business Journal, Bostwick-Braun lost out to a Knoxville firm, House-Hasson Hardware, in an auction late last month in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Birmingham. The Toledo company is to receive a $240,000 break-up fee under terms of the agreement, the publication reported.