Plans call for Heidelberg to close Eagle’s operation at 4020 Dayton St., Springfield, at an as-yet-undetermined date, said Lee Oberlag, a Heidelberg spokeswoman. Deliveries to Eagle’s retail customers will be made from Heidelberg’s Dayton facility at 1247 Leo St., perhaps as soon as Dec. 14, company officials said.
Heidelberg expects to hire some of Eagle’s 38 employees once the sale concludes, though executives have yet to determine how many, Oberlag said.
In a statement, James Acra, president of Eagle Beverage, said it was a hard decision to sell the business, which his family has owned since 1973.
“My family did not come to the conclusion lightly to sell Eagle Beverage,” Acra said. “Currently there are a lot of unknowns in the wholesale beer and small business industry. We felt that the timing was right for us to make an exit from the beverage industry.”
Eagle distributed Anheuser-Busch InBev products to more than 500 retailers in Clark, Champaign, Madison counties as well as parts of Fayette and Greene counties, according to a news release.
In addition to Dayton, Heidelberg also has facilities in Ohio in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Evendale, Lorain, Norwalk and Toledo and in Kentucky has an operation in Covington, Oberlag said.
Beverage World, an industry trade publication, has ranked Heidelberg as the nation’s 16th largest beer distributor with a volume of 14.5 million cases. The company had revenue of $198 million, Beverage World said.