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Weekend Warrior closes two Perris factories, lays off about 250
07:19 PM PDT on Monday, July 28, 2008
By RODD CAYTON
The Press-Enterprise
Weekend Warrior Trailers Inc. is shutting two Perris factories and has laid off about 250 workers, owner Mark Warmoth said Monday.
The company, like the entire recreational vehicle industry, has been battered by the declining economy and the slumping residential real estate market, he said.
The absence of home price appreciation, which often yields equity that can be tapped for the RV purchase, has cost the industry about 40 percent of its peak business, Warmoth said. Another 10 percent or more has vanished as consumer confidence has waned, he said.
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Stan Lim / The Press-Enterprise
A drop in sales this year forced Weekend Warriors Trailers Inc. to close two factories in Perris on Monday, laying off about 250 workers.
The company continues to operate factories it owns in Riverside and Perris; it leased the closing factories. .
Weekend Warrior, Warmoth said, was ill-prepared for the market to fall off after a boom that lasted more than a decade.
"I expected to be here for my customers forever," he said. He described his company as "still open, but in trouble."
Owners will still be able to get replacement parts, which are sold by other companies, he said.
It's been a rough year for Weekend Warrior -- three executives resigned in April, and the company let 100 people go in March.
Warmoth said earlier that he was expecting the company's sales for 2008 to fall about 25 percent from last years' $155 million, which was itself a 25 percent drop from 2006 sales.
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The poor economy has meant rough times for Weekend Warrior, which let 100 employees go earlier this year.
The shrinking of Weekend Warrior is the latest hit to the local RV industry. In April, a small company, Ontario-based Alfa Leisure, closed down.
In December, Perris-based National RV Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection and closed its manufacturing plant, eliminating 600 jobs.
Andy Coyle, president at Canyon RV Center in Colton, said he's aware that manufacturers are having a rough time. Growth has been slowing for a couple of years, he said, but the sharp hike in fuel prices, combined with housing and credit woes, has dealt a blow to the industry.
Dealers, he said, aren't in as bad a condition, because they can rely on service work and sales of used RVs to offset slowing new-RV sales.
Coyle said the industry should regain its footing eventually, as RVing is still one of the least expensive ways to vacation.
He said manufacturers who expanded too quickly during the boom may not have the cash to ride out the slowdown, but he thinks the market has reached a trough, and should rebound as housing does.
"It's temporary, but if you don't have the money to survive temporarily, it doesn't matter," Coyle said.
July sales at Canyon RV Center have been an improvement over June, but it might take two years before the industry sees sales back at their 2004 peak. In previous months, he said, sales have been "off quite a bit," declining to elaborate.
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