Collins & Aikman began in 1891 when Charles M. Aikman, who joined Gibbons L. Kelty's home furnishings business in 1870, became partners with William Collins, with Kelty's interest being sold. The company went public in 1916 with the sale to Thomas Doody and Melville Curtis. The company acquired Bangor Mills of
Pennsylvania in 1960 and Imperial Paper in 1971. In March 1998, Collins & Aikman submitted a site plan for a move by its headquarters to Northfield Hills Corporate Center in
Troy, Michigan. The carpet and acoustic group, automotive fabrics and Akro floor mats were moving from
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and Dura Convertible Systems was moving from
Madison Heights, Michigan, while the Manchester Plastics unit acquired in 1996 and renamed Collins & Aikman Plastics was already in Troy. The company kept about 100 employees in various departments in Charlotte, where it had operations for 25 years, until 2003. In 2002, after the acquisition of the Textron Automotive trim unit, the company announced plans to move its operations to Stephenson Highway, where the plastics unit was already located.
Entering into bankruptcy In early 2005 the firm had to review its 2004 results due to accounting problems. It then suffered a liquidity crisis which resulted in the ousting of the chairman and CEO,
David Stockman, in early May, followed by the Chapter 11 filing. After filing for bankruptcy in Europe in May 2005 and in the United States in July 2005, Collins & Aikman announced April 6, 2006 that it would close four North Carolina plants. This included one plant in
Farmville with 650 workers and three plants employing 590 in
Person County, where the company was the largest employer and had been in
Roxboro since 1923. Three other North Carolina plants employing 1,244 would continue operating in
Albemarle,
Old Fort and
Montgomery County. The fate of the
El Paso, Texas plant and its 75 workers was uncertain. The Albemarle unit, started in the 1950s, became International Automotive Components in 2007. In September 2017 the Old Fort operation, with 700 employees, became part of a
United Kingdom-based
joint venture between Shanghai Shenda Co. Ltd. and International Automotive Components called Auria Solutions, Ltd., with U.S. headquarters in
Southfield, Michigan and 21 plants in 10 countries. This was followed in July 2011 by a British
High Court ruling which put 24 C&A companies across 10 European countries into English administration proceedings, recognising that these companies operated as a cohesive unit and would need to be dealt with holistically. ==SEC lawsuit==