GREAT BEND, Kan. (AP) Few changes are expected at the central Kansas headquarters of Fuller Brush Co. following a bankruptcy protection filing that will let the company eliminate unprofitable products and improve its marketing, a top executive said.
The 106-year-old company and its parent firm, New York-based CPAC Inc., both filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week in New York. Fuller Brush said its assets and debts both amount to between $10 million and $50 million.
Chief restructuring officer Larry Perkins told The Great Bend Tribune that bankruptcy protection will allow the struggling company to afford raw materials, cover salaries and pay the lease on its 123-acre site in the city.
All but five of Fuller’s 185 employees work at the Great Bend headquarters, and Perkins said he does not expect any immediate changes in employment.
“We’re still in business making brushes and chemicals like we have been for over 100 years,” Perkins said. “We are going to continue to make product and deliver product.”
Famed in the past for its vast corps of door-to-door salesmen peddling brushes, brooms and cleansers, Fuller now concentrates on personal care and household cleaning products.
Perkins said the company suffered from the recession, but foundered for other reasons as well.
“We were not proactive in coming up with new products,” he said, noting that Fuller’s product line had changed little over the years. In bankruptcy, the company will emphasize a line of custom products and work to improve its sales and marketing efforts, he said.
The filing came less than two months after Fuller trumpeted a new website, new kitchen and bathroom cleaners and expanded relationships with retailers including Publix markets and Orchard Supply Hardware.
Jan Peters, president of the Great Bend Chamber of Commerce, said Fuller Brush “has been and will be a staple in our community.”
“We want them to know we are here if there is anything we can do to help,” Peters said.
In June 2011, the Great Bend City Council voted to loan the company nearly $150,000 and apply for a state grant to help Fuller with a million-dollar project that was to include a rebranding effort. But Fuller never finalized the loan, city administrator Howard Partington said.
