NAPA gets
new driverThe Schuman Automotive group
is selling its Hawaii business to
Atlanta-based Genuine Parts Co.
The family-owned Schuman Automotive group is selling its NAPA auto parts business, which does about $35 million a year in sales, to a public company with $8 billion in annual revenues.
The price of the deal with Genuine Parts Co. was not disclosed, but it includes NAPA Hawaiian Warehouse Inc., the Schuman-owned wholesale parts business, as well as three Schuman-owned NAPA retail outlets on Oahu.
In a filing with the state Department of Labor & Industrial Relations, Schuman said it expects most, if not all, of the 183 workers in the businesses will be kept on by Genuine Parts or Schuman itself.
Jerry Nix, a spokesman for Atlanta-based Genuine Parts Co. agreed. "We have no intention of making any changes. We will be sending one individual over to manage that entire operation," but otherwise it should be business and employment as usual, Nix said.
G.E. "Dutch" Schuman brought the NAPA brand to Hawaii in 1955. His company now has seven NAPA parts stores on Oahu and supplies 36 NAPA stores throughout the state, most of them independently owned franchises.
Schuman will keep three stores, the outlets in Kailua, Kakaako and Wahiawa. A fourth, in Kaneohe, is being sold to another business, the Labor Department filing said. A Schuman representative would not identify that buyer. Three Oahu stores, in Campbell Industrial Park, Kalihi and Waipahu, will be acquired by Genuine Parts.
Genuine Parts, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol GPC, operates 58 NAPA distribution centers on the mainland and has subsidiaries that sell automotive, industrial, electrical and electronic parts throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico.
A statement from GPC said the agreement calls for a cash purchase that will be closed when the details and any needed regulatory approvals are finalized.
The target for that to happen is Oct. 31, Schuman said in its state filing. Schuman officials declined to comment beyond what was said in a short public announcement.
In its Labor Department filing, Schuman said that GPC "has advised us that it plans to continue to operate the NAPA business and to make offers of employment to substantially all of the employees employed by the seller," other than those who will be asked to work for Schuman Automotive or at the three stores Schuman will keep.
The filing said NAPA Hawaiian Warehouse has 124 employees and about 114 for them will cease to be Schuman employees but probably move to employment with GPC.
Schuman Automotive has 59 employees in the parts business and about 27 of them will be terminated and offered jobs at GPC, the filing said.
