Sabreliner change means layoffs, then rehiring

A spokeswoman on Tuesday confirmed Sabreliner Services LLC bought the assets of Sabreliner Corp., an aircraft manufacturing and repair company with facilities in Perryville, Mo., Ste. Genevieve, Mo., and Clayton, Mo.

Employees of Sabreliner Corp. were informed Friday they will be released, said Ann Hein, spokeswoman for the corporation, which has about 100 employees spread between the locations.

Part of Sabreliner Services LLC "setting the stage for the new ownership" is releasing the employees, interviewing them and rehiring them, Hein said, which is "just a formality."

The company is taking the "business step of releasing everybody only to bring them back in on their own paper," she said.

"Today, Sabreliner Corp. begins its next chapter," Sabreliner Corp.'s president Holmes Lamoreux said in a statement, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "We were never able to replace the significant business lost during [government] sequestration. As a result, we haven't been able to repay the company's bank debt so the bank has sold it to another enterprise. Sabreliner soon will be operating under new management."

Lamoreux and Sabreliner Corp.'s vice chairman Susan Aselage will leave the company, the Post-Dispatch reported, and the new owner is expected to meet with employees in the coming weeks.

No company named Sabreliner Services LLC is registered with the Missouri secretary of state, though it could be based elsewhere, the newspaper reported.

A representative of Sabreliner Services LLC said the new owner intends to continue operations.

In November 2012, Sabreliner announced the layoff of 180 employees because of cuts in the defense budget, and 80 employees were furloughed in March because a contract ended, according to previous Southeast Missourian reporting.

Fifty-four more employees were laid off in June, with the government sequester -- the federal spending reduction plan enacted by Congress that went into effect in March -- to blame, according to then-vice president of business development Steve Sperry.

In late December, Sabreliner Corp. sold buildings in St. Mary and Ste. Genevieve, according to the Ste. Genevieve Herald.

The Perryville Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday announced a job fair Friday and Saturday for Sabreliner Services LLC, a "world-class aerospace company under new ownership seeking to staff operations at their Ste. Genevieve and Perryville facilities."

Melissa Hemmann, executive director of the chamber, said the job fair is for those who were released to reapply for their jobs and new applicants.

Messages left for representatives of the Teamsters Local 600, which represents about 70 Sabreliner employees, were unreturned as of Tuesday afternoon.

ashedd@semissourian.com

388-3632

Pertinent addresses:

1390 Highway H, Perryville, Mo.

1040 Rozier St., Ste. Genevieve, Mo.

7733 Forsyth Blvd., Suite 1500, St. Louis, Mo.

St. Mary, MO