Bush Hog, LLC announced it has reached an agreement with Alo, TN, a division of Alo AB, to take over Bush Hog's Telford, Tenn. manufacturing facility.

The transaction is scheduled to be complete mid-August 2009. Under the agreement Alo will supply Bush Hog with loaders and related attachments. This newly formed relationship will provide Alo, AB with U.S. manufacturing capabilities and will enable Bush Hog, LLC to continue its long time tradition of providing quality and competitive front-end loaders and attachments in the market place.

Alo develops, produces and globally markets front loaders with associated equipment. The Group sells products under independent brands, Quicke and Trima, and manufactures products for leading tractor manufacturers via OEM agreements.

Alo has five factories in three countries and sales companies in eight countries. Sales for 2008 were approximately 34,000 front loaders and 55,000 implements. There are approximately 600 Alo employees.

Duane Prentice, president of Bush Hog, said Tuesday that reports by The Associated Press of the layoff of 141 workers at the Telford, Tenn., site were inaccurate.

The Associated Press reported Monday the labor report for the week of June 1-8 in Nashville, Tenn., by the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development would see a layoff at the end of the month.

Prentice explained that about a month ago, workers at the Telford plant were told Bush Hog would not remain in the Tennessee facility, but were working on a relationship with a company to take over the site and provide products for Bush Hog.

Local officials in Washington County were notified of the same facts, Prentice said, as required by the 1988 Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act to inform local governments of pending mass layoffs. Bush Hog has not revealed the name of the potential business.

"We have signed a contract and are working on a press release about who that company is," Prentice said in a telephone interview with The Selma Times-Journal.

As for Alabama operations, Prentice said the company has had "a very successful turning around of our business during the last four months."

Bush Hog is for sale, and Prentice said several "very interested" parties want to purchase the company.

Bush Hog is owned by CC Industries of Chicago, a corporation which is owned by Henry Crown & Co., also of Chicago.

Source: Times-Journal of Selma, Ala.