Ninety-nine-year-old Weave Corp. of Hackensack, whose upholstery material was once used to decorate Camp David, has closed amid pressure from its lender, PNC Bank.
The bank on Monday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Newark to secure possession of the company's assets, asking the court to assign a receiver in connection with millions of dollars in loans.
Court papers say the bank learned on Nov. 3 that the company one of the last textile businesses remaining in North Jersey had ceased operations and terminated employees. Aside from its Hackensack Avenue headquarters, the company, which had 73 employees as of September, had a New York sales office and a factory in Denver, Pa.
Chief Executive Officer and President Roger Berkley, reached at his Woodcliff Lake home, declined to comment on the closing or the suit, except to say "it's part of the process."
Weave received credit and loans worth $11 million from the bank in 2006, using company's assets as collateral, court papers show. It was unclear from the documents how much the company still owed.
Berkely, who is chairman of the Boston-based National Textile Association, later guaranteed the loans personally and in 2008, Weave granted PNC a mortgage lien on the manufacturer's Pennsylvania factory.
The textile company, which specialized in high-end upholstery material, was started in 1910. The company's material was used by interior designers and upholsters. It was used to decorate Camp David, the Maryland country retreat for U.S. presidents, when President Ronald Reagan was in office.
Originally based in Paterson, Weave moved its manufacturing operations to Pennsylvania to cut costs in 1968.
In an interview with The Record in September for an article on how textile companies were surviving, Berkely said he had reduced his workforce to 73 from 155 because of the recession.
The bank issued a notice of default on the loans in May, according to court papers. The documents state Weave reported a loss of nearly $1.2 million from the end of March to the end of August.
