When Does the Haas Fire Sale Start?

28th August 2007

When Does the Haas Fire Sale Start?

posted in NASCAR |

Gene Haas has pleaded guilty to defrauding the government of more than $34 million in taxes.

The 54-year-old owner of Haas Automation and Haas CNC Racing has agreed to pay a fine, back taxes and interest totaling more than 70 million, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Isn’t that a fine kettle of fish?! $70 million dollars worth of “fish.”

Wonder if Johnny Sauter and Jeff Green, not to mention development driver Blake Bjorklund, have a preference as to who the teams new owner will be? Will the team be sold off as a whole, piecemeal or swallowed up by another team?

Can we expect to see Frankenstein’s Monster on EBay anytime soon?

Haas has run into one of the two the certainties of life, the Taxman.

The Feds recommended he serve two years in the Federal Pen and it would be advisable Haas brush up on his jailhouse slang, it might ease his transformation from NASCAR highroller to jail punk.

Haas CNC Racing, Gene Haas, NASCAR, NEXTEL Cup, Sports, Auto Racing, Motorsports, Full Throttle

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 1:53 am and is filed under NASCAR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On August 28th, 2007, vroom said:#

As the song says…”Another one bites the dust”!

posted on August 28th, 2007 at 7:29 pm

2 On August 29th, 2007, Lloyd Graff said:#

As someone who has personally met Gene Haas, I wouldn’t be shocked if he stayed in the racing game. Gene doesn’t have that many diverse passions in his life. He enjoys the competition of business and racing, coming up with more clever engineering ideas than his opponents and the camaraderie of his small circle of friends, which has shrunk since the indictments. He has no wife or kids. Once he gets out of jail, he will need racing to bring some fun back into his life.

Also, he was never directly responsible for his teams. There were always managers who were the true front men and they have taken an even more dominant role on the surface.

Gene is not the type to fall and disappear. His name is still on the machines he sells. He’s a fierce tough competitor and he may need to get right back to work when he gets out to earn that 70 mill. He will probably be watching his team race on cable sitting in the pen.

posted on August 29th, 2007 at 1:59 am

3 On August 29th, 2007, Marc said:#

I won’t dispute anything you have written Lloyd, but I will say this: When the taxman cometh… you pay one way or another.

Somehow I doubt Haas will be cutting a check for $70 mil anytime soon. That means “an arrangement” with the IRS will be made. Whether Haas is able to retain ownership of the race team is out of his hands and squarely under the control of the IRS.

posted on August 29th, 2007 at 5:08 am

4 On August 29th, 2007, Matt said:#

I think it would a smart move for an existing owner to buy the team and take advantage of their engineering program with the Haas CNC company. Maybe Yates. If nothing else, you get two sponsored cars with an underrated driver (Sauter).

posted on August 29th, 2007 at 10:15 am

5 On August 29th, 2007, Grady said:#

The smartest move might be to take Haas Automation public. Right now is probably not a great time to do it, but they’re estimating $800 million in revenue for 2008. If you figure they make 10% profit on that, the company should be worth something like $1.2 billion. Gene would probably have to have a lot of work done in the meantime to separate his various business ventures to get the company ready for an IPO, but if he would sell a 25% stake, he’d be able to take out more than enough cash to write a check for $70 million, and he’d still control the future of the company.

posted on August 29th, 2007 at 10:28 pm

6 On September 21st, 2007, Tigs said:#

I know a few people that work at Haas Automation. I hear nothing but good things about Gene. He takes an interest in his employees and makes very generous donations to local charities as well to individuals in need.
He has a passion for high performance cars, however in 1978 he sold his Porsche to buy a NC chucker to gain a competitive advantage over machine shops with manual machines. He saw the opportunities in manufacturing rotary tables, indexers and then progressed to building machine tools.
Haas Automation has over 1,000,000 square feet of manufacturing and warehouse space and about 1,400 employees based on 90 acres. (Check goggle earth

posted on September 21st, 2007 at 2:23 pm

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