Series 4. Dissolution/Pension Plan, 1984–1990

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Once the Board of Directors had determined that the assets of Arvonia-Buckingham should be sold and the corporation dissolved, a series of important actions took place. The sale was negotiated with Buckingham Slate Company, Inc., a subsidiary of Hi-Test Laboratories, Inc., of Buckingham, Virginia, that appears to have been created specifically for this purpose, perhaps as a holding company. Although papers in this collection do not reveal the process, within a few years those assets had been acquired by LeSueur-Richmond Slate Corporation, a company that had literally operated alongside Arvonia-Buckingham for many years and that had joined with it and Williams Slate Company, Inc., in forming Buckingham-Virginia Slate Corporation in 1929 to market and sell slate products from these various firms.

Proceeds from the sale of assets were placed in escrow, partly to fund the final activities of company executives in dissolving the corporation and partly to supplement the previously funded pension plan. With the dissolution of the firm, qualified participants in the pension plan were offered lump sum distributions of benefits (if they had less than $3,500 invested in the plan) or could elect lump-sum payments or the establishment of annuities with regular benefits payments. Much of the second half of this series concerns the termination of the pension plan, management of assets briefly by State Mutual Assurance Company of America, of Worchester, Mass., the creation of a trust to manage assets, oversight of the plan termination and distribution of assets by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and dealings of the company with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

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