National Clothesline

New products, services and ideas will all be on display at the Steiner-Atlantic Corporation’s International Dryclean & Laundry Expo 2005, slated for the weekend of Feb. 12 and 13, 2005.

The event, hosted at the company’s headquarters at 290 NE 68th Street in Miami, FL, will be free to the industry.

All of the latest alternative solvents will be seen in operation at the Expo, including GreenEarth and the Tonsil Powder spin disc filtration system for hydrocarbon. Attendees may also watch live demonstrations of a Green Jet dry-wetcleaning machine in action, as well.

Special show prices will be offered on all types of equipment and a warehouse of trade-in used equipment will be available for purchase.

Throughout both days, cleaners will have several opportunities to listen to educational seminars. Guest speakers include Everett Childers, who will discuss the future of the drycleaning industry, and Dennis McCrory, who will offer ideas on “How to Increase Your Sales.”

Jimmy Goulet will also be present to examine plant equipment maintenance procedures.

The Expo will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on February 12 and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on February 13.

Attendees who need overnight accommodations can contact the Hampton Inn in Hallandale Beach. Rooms are available for $129 per night. For reservations, call (965) 874-1111.

For more information on the Expo, contact Steiner-Atlantic Corp. at (305) 754-4551.

Registration can be completed at the company’s web site, www.steineratlantic.com, which also has a list of exhibitors.

Six Korean investors pooled their resources together in an effort to buy a 28-store drycleaning chain in Memphis. The total price tag on the sale was close to $8.5 million.

The 28 stores purchased included the Dryve Cleaners chain, Dryve, Inc., and other brands such as Eastgate Cleaners, Park Place Cleaners and Mallard Cleaners.

Howard Cannon, senior vice president at Buckeye Tech-nologies, Inc., originally founded the business and continued to own the cleaners over the past few years while he joined Buckeye.

The investors included Harry Kim, who purchased locations at Winchester and 4625 in Germantown for $800,000; Sung Moon, who paid $600,000 for a location in Poplar; Byoungil Choi, who bought a Union cleaners for $350,000; and Kenny Suh, who spent $600,000 in acquiring a plant at 3685 Germantown.

Kim, who hails from Little Rock, was the biggest investor, paying $3.2 million altogether for his cluster of locations.

All of the plants were purchased with leases except for five locations: properties were included in the sales at 5180 Poplar, 1356 Union, 6186 Winchester, 4625 Germantown Road Ext. and 3685 Germantown Road Ext.

Representing the investors were brokers Sukie Mollendor with Re/Max On-Track, Inc. and Wally Whitmer with NAI Saig Co.