In The Pipeline: ‘Activist’ hedge funds challenge a booming Eugene company
Monday, June 12, 2006 : PermalinkThe Register-Guard – PW Eagle Inc. has been flying high for the past couple of years.
The PVC pipe manufacturer, which is headquartered in Eugene and has a plant in Glenwood, built itself into one of the country’s largest PVC producers through a series of acquisitions.
PW Eagle’s Minneapolis-based founders created the company by buying the shell of a Midwestern meatpacking plant in 1993. They built it by buying several manufacturers of PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, pipe – the kind used for irrigation and sewer systems. One of those acquisitions – in 1999 – was PW Pipe, a longtime Eugene company.
Having survived restructuring, refinancing and a cyclical industry, PW Eagle now faces new uncertainties.
Late last year, PW Eagle’s share price shot up from about $10 a share to $24 a share. The stock closed on Wednesday at $27.92 a share. After the stock run-up, PW Eagle attracted the notice of two large investors, Caxton Associates and Pirate Capital.
The pair are hedge funds, private investment partnerships, which are largely unregulated and have come under fire in the United States and Europe for their secretive nature and the power they wield in financial markets.