THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 11, 1996 TAG: 9602100346
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEPHANIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 39 lines
Local shoppers probably recognize the name Fine's. But not as familiar are the businesses that have owned the clothing retailer over the years.
Ruby and Leon Fine founded Fine's Men's Shops Inc. in Norfolk in 1933, but the family-owned chain became a subsidiary of apparel titan Interco Inc. in 1970. Members of the Fine family, Mitchell and Barry, and senior management stayed on to steer the chain.
With Interco wobbling, the Fines and other managers bought the company back in 1989 for $22.5 million. They kept the company name - Fine's Men's Shops Inc. - but also set up a holding company called Azalea Acquisition Corp.
Both companies filed for bankruptcy protection in July 1994. Fine's Men's Shops Inc. was liquidated into Azalea and now is nothing more than a trade name.
Today, Azalea is essentially a shell company. Its assets were funneled into another company, called Fine's Inc., last year. Azalea got 5 percent of Fine's Inc. and the company's biggest creditor, Heller Financial Corp., got the rest.
Fine's Inc. didn't last long, either. It owned the retail chain probably for just a few weeks during bankruptcy proceedings and then was put up for sale.
One of the unsuccessful bidders was Fine's Acquisition LLC, headed by apparel manufacturer Lawrence Ashinoff.
Fine's new owners don't look drastically different than those who owned the apparel chain in pre-bankruptcy times. They are Mitchell Fine, Barry Fine and a few others in senior management. (Some of the senior managers are different.) But the company's name, of course, has changed. It's now STAMOR Corp. by CNB