Fleetwood Selling HomeOne Credit

Fleetwood Enterprises, a Riverside, Calif.-based producer of manufactured homes and recreational vehicles, is selling its manufactured housing financial services business, HomeOne Credit Corp.It is also looking to exit the retail manufactured home sales business, the company said. Offers will be solicited for both businesses combined or separately. "We are taking this action in order to stem losses and concentrate our attention on our core businesses," said president and chief executive Elden L. Smith. "We are convinced that returning Fleetwood to its traditional focus on manufacturing operations and wholesale distribution channels in both our manufactured housing and in our recreational vehicle businesses provides us with the best opportunity to regain our former position as the industry leader in both." Mr. Smith, who rejoined Fleetwood on March 9, said the company hopes the retail sales business and HomeOne can be sold to one buyer to minimize disruption at the companies. Until 1997 when he retired, Mr. Smith was in charge of the company's recreational vehicle group. For its third fiscal quarter, ended Jan. 23, 2005, Fleetwood had a net loss of $54.7 million ($0.99 per share), compared with a loss of $10.2 million ($0.26 per share) for the third quarter of fiscal 2004.