Genmar Holdings, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Monday, can trace its roots back to bankruptcy court.
In 1977, Irwin Jacobs, who had gained fame by buying and dismantling distressed businesses, took over Larson Industries Inc., a bankrupt boatmaker in Little Falls., Minn., whose founder began building boats there in the 1910s. Jacobs cobbled it together with Arctic Enterprises Inc., a Thief River Falls, Minn., boat and snowmobile business he had taken into and out of bankruptcy.
As part of its bankruptcy reorganization, Arctic shed its snowmobile operations. Larson's and Arctic's boat businesses became the core of Minstar Inc., so named by Jacobs because he saw it becoming "the star of Minnesota."
Jacobs used Minstar as a vehicle to acquire a variety of undervalued companies, including boat businesses. In 1986, the boat operations were spun off from Minstar into the newly formed subsidiary, Genmar.
Since the 1990s, Genmar's mix of boat businesses has changed as Jacobs added some brands and disposed of others, including Lund and Crestliner, both based in Minnesota. Genmar also has been an innovator, launching a line of wood-hull boats that are hand-built in Turkey and helping develop "virtual engineered composites" (VEC) manufacturing technology to produce lighter and stronger fiberglass boats more efficiently and with fewer pollutants. The VEC subsidiary, which is not part of the bankruptcy filing, has expanded to make other products and early this year began producing containers for the Army National Guard.
SUSAN FEYDER
