Green Flash latest: Bank pulls plug
The financially troubled Green Flash brewery has been sold to a group of investors following a foreclosure by the company’s principal lender, Comerica Bank, media reported on 2 April 2018. The announcement of the sale comes just a week after Green Flash closed its Virginia Beach brewery 16 months after opening the East Coast operation.
As a result of the sale, a new ownership group of investors calling itself WC IPA LLC is taking over, along with a number of top management changes.
Former Green Flash Brewing Co. CEO Mike Hinkley will continue to be part of the leadership team of the new company.
“After a general slowdown in the craft beer industry, coupled with intense competition and a slowdown of our business, we could not service the debt that we took on to build the Virginia Beach brewery, and in early 2018, the company defaulted on its loans with Comerica Bank,” Mr Hinkley wrote in a note to Green Flash’s shareholders.
“While we took substantial efforts to recapitalise the company over the past several months, both before and after the bank default, we were ultimately unable to close a transaction.”
The Green Flash and Alpine breweries will continue to operate under the new ownership, he said, but Green Flash Brewing Co. and Alpine Beer, which Green Flash purchased in 2014, will be dissolved.
Pat McIlhenney, a co-founder of Alpine, will have no role in the new company.
Despite the financial troubles, the Green Flash Brewhouse & Eatery in Lincoln, Nebraska, will open in April, and will brew specialty beers serving the state of Nebraska.
