The hearing set to approve the sale of bankrupt Magnetation’s assets to a Roanoke, Va., entrepreneur has been delayed until Tuesday in St. Paul.
Judge William J. Fisher ordered the change for the hearing at which he has said he will give final approval to the sale.
The deal was sold in bankruptcy court documents filed last week as the last, best hope to reopen the failed company's shuttered iron ore recovery operations on the Iron Range.
Tom Clarke, owner of Kissito Healthcare, ERP Compliant Fuels and now ERP Iron Ore, brokered the deal to acquire Magnetation's now-idled plants in Keewatin, Bovey and Grand Rapids that turn leftover mining waste into valuable iron ore concentrate.
The deal also includes all of Grand Rapids-based Magnetation's rail operations and the company's pellet-making plant in Reynolds, Ind.
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Clarke said he hopes to close the deal by year's end and restart at least some operations in 2017. It's likely Plant 4 in Grand Rapids, which had about 130 employees when it closed in October, would be the first to reopen. The future is less clear for the Bovey plant, which had 167 employees until closing in January, and the Keewatin plant, which had about 50 employees when it closed in 2015.
