Documents: Vertex Railcar owes more than $45M, faces involuntary bankruptcy

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Vertex Railcar, a company that once promised to bring more than 1,300 jobs to Wilmington, is facing involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy, according to court documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

According to the filing, Vertex owes more than $45 million in debt, with a majority of it owed to CRRC Yangtze, one of the company’s owners.

In October of 2014, then-Governor Pat McCrory came to Wilmington to announce Vertex would bring $1 billion in economic development to the area. The company set up shop in the old Terex plant near the NC State Port to build rail cars.

The company showed a lot of promise, even partnering with an organization to hire not only veterans, but also felons and the underemployed.

The company had hired around 200 people and was producing its first rail cars by September of 2015, even opening its doors to the media to show the company’s operation. But not long after that, came the bad news.

By May of 2016, the company had laid off more than 60 employees, claiming the demand for one of the rail cars they were producing had gone down. They company claimed they had to shift their focus to another type of rail car.

Not long after that happened, members of Congress wanted the committee on foreign investing to look into Vertex’s partnership with China Railroad Rolling Stock Corporation, the company that now is seeking more than $44 million from Vertex.

Vertex finally closed its doors late last year.