Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 9, 1995 TAG: 9511090046
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Under terms of the agreement with Ecological Systems of Sparta, N.C., Thermastructure Ltd. has the rights to manufacture and license the manufacture of Radva's patented steel and plastic-foam building panels throughout most of the United States. Patents for the 4-by-8-foot wall panels used in home and commercial construction will remain with Radva, however. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Not included in the deal with Ecological Systems is jurisdiction over a license Radva previously sold for the manufacture and distribution of the panels in California and certain counties in Nevada.
Also, under the agreement, Radva retains ownership of its subsidiary company that makes the machinery used to manufacture the panels and will keep the right to license the manufacture and distribution of the panels outside the United States. Radva already has licensed the building system in such places as Australia, Guam, Mexico and Russia.
Radva will hold a 20 percent interest in Thermastructure Ltd., and Luther Dickens, Radva's president, will sit on the subsidiary's board.
Panel-making machinery from Radva's 17th Street plant will be moved into an adjacent building, which formerly was owned by the Inland Motor Division of Kollmorgen Corp. Thermastructure Ltd. has acquired the building as part of the deal.
Ten Radva employees involved in panel manufacture will move next door with the equipment.
Dickens said the sale gives Radva, whose major business is the production of protective plastic-foam packaging, working capital and will allow the company to provide better service to the companies that Radva has licensed to sell and distribute the panels.
Jerry Colliflower, executive vice president of Ecological Systems, serves as Thermastructure's managing director. Ecological Systems, which he said does residential and commercial construction with environmentally friendly products, became interested in Radva's building panels in 1989, Colliflower said. "It's the wall-frame system for the 21st century," he said.
Thermastructure plans to distribute the panels throughout the parts of the country where it is not forbidden by Radva's previous license agreement, Colliflower said. The company already has plans to take the product to home shows in Atlanta; Kansas City, Mo.; and Beckley, W.Va.; in the spring, he said.
by CNB