The Almond family has been in the lumber business since Green Almond lost his arm in battle at Chancellorsville, according to the lumber company’s website.
Almond Brothers Lumber, founded in 1947, became the Small Business Exporter of the Year in 2000 for the Export-Import Bank, the defunct federal agency that used to subsidize U.S. exporters. The 2003 Ex-Im Annual Report featured a two-page spread on the Almond Brothers.
Now the Almond Brothers and Ex-Im have broken up. “We got out last year,” CEO Ardis Almond told me, and not because of the agency’s problem’s with Congress (previously approved working-capital guarantees are still operative). They got out because (contrary to the scare stories of Ex-Im supporters) private-sector financing was perfectly available for their exports, and dealing with Ex-Im was causing headaches.
“It looked like everything was for big business instead of small business,” Ardis told me.
“We used to be their poster child. They even used us in their magazine,” he said, referring to the glossy, stylized 2003 annual report. But now, “it’s just for big business,” he says.
But without Ex-Im, Almond Brothers Lumber is still exporting about 90 percent of its yellow pine, according to the company’s treasurer William Almond. “We were able to find other financing.”
William tells me that they lined up a term loan with one bank, and a line of credit with a regional bank, using the company’s receivables and inventory as collateral. This export financing is exactly the sort of financial product that Ex-Im defenders say will disappear without the agency.
The Almond brothers are critics of the agency, but not opponents. “I think it’s a good agency,” William told me, “but I think they need to take the politics out of it.”
But their story is the story of what is probably happening to hundreds or thousands of the small exporters whom Ex-Im has subsidized. (About 20 percent of Ex-Im financing supports small exporters.) Ex-Im helped finance some deals, but when Ex-Im stepped away, the private sector stepped in.
In August of 2014, Ardis wrote to Ex-Im officials, following up on an earlier meeting request.
“We were working toward some relief from some ExIm problems,” Ardis wrote. “Now of course we are not even sure ExIm will survive.”
He continued:
“Meeting with you seemed to be critical a few weeks ago. However, we are in the final details of a plan that should refinance our operation without the need for ExIm, or at least, greatly reduce the amount of help from ExIm. We will know more about that by the end of next week and I will be back in touch.”
