NAFA News - October 19
 

New financing has fallen through. This doesn’t sound good to me. :(

To: NAFA Customer

As you know from previous communications, NAFA has been, for many weeks, working towards a refinancing of the Company with a new lending syndicate that we hoped and expected would be in place by Thursday, October 17th. Unfortunately and most regrettably, despite our best efforts, this new financing has now fallen through. There are a variety of reasons for this, none of which are important at this point in time.

Consequently, NAFA’s Senior Management is currently pursing other strategic options in order to preserve NAFA’s business in some form so that it can continue to satisfy the needs of our customers, both buyers and consignors, employees and other stakeholders.

We greatly appreciate the support and patience of our customers during these difficult times. Obviously, after expending so much effort in recent times to preserve NAFA as we have come to know it, we are deeply sorry to have to be in this position. Nevertheless, we continue to work hard to secure the best possible future for the Company, our customers and the trade.

We will announce further details as they develop over the coming days.


Sincerely,

Douglas Lawson
President & CEO

https://www.nafa.ca/webcenter/portal...id=NAFA_021203

Doesnt sound good, I'm glad it happened now and not in a couple months when all my fur is sitting there. I truly hope they're not going bankrupt.

This has really gotten my attention now. Already thinking about not sending my fur into the first auction. It might be prudent to see what unfolds and send it all into the second auction.

If there is no first sale my fur will all go FHA from now on

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NAFA news
 

Same here.

Zero chance I will send any fur to NAFA this year their cheque bounced and they won’t even respond to emails

The way its sounding there might not be a nafa to send fur to right away. Marty you got alot more skin in the game than us have you heard anything other than what we know?

That is a lot more serious then the original letter with original bank walking away.

Really hope they pull through as I truly believe we need two auction houses.

Hope FHA can handle the volume and there commission stays the same.


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I hear many different things from many different kinds of people, mostly rumor stuff from non-NAFA affiliated people. I do not have facts in hand, difficult to get. Many of the things get circulated by a group of NAFA haters, and I am not talking trappers or ranchers and it's very easy to hear their rumours vs pretty much impossible to find hard facts.

My personal opinion/understanding of it all is that they are/were attempting to acquire a very large loan for an extremely large company from an extremely financially massive syndicate. A loan of such size isn't easy to come by. Next it takes a long time to iron out the details of such a loan. If you are working with a single loan entity with a single voice then it would probably be much easier than with a syndicate comprised of numerous people/entities/groups... too many chiefs? So they have put in a month of negotiating and come up short. Is the negotiation 100% over? I don't know.


We must wait on the NAFA brass to sort thru this. I am not privy to any inside information. I have no idea as to what it takes to sort thru a problem like this. Hopefully they will shed some more light on the subject quickly, hopefully it is a simple job to move onto the next lender or else hopefully the first will show up tomorrow and change their minds and we live happily into the next era... the one where the mink market re-establishes itself rapidly and it's up, up and away for all and we see wild fur spike up and stay up like we haven't in a very long time, it is possible, There has been a dramatic, long awaited reduction happening in the mink world, and sounds like world production could be 30 million pelts this coming year, down from estimates of previous 90 million to 110 million produced annually, and possible for a significantly further reduction yet while the world clears itself of the horrendous backlog of mink. Mountains of mink have been bought by speculators and will continue to feed thru the system for the next few years.

What I do know as a fact is that there are some very good people at the helm now, as in new people due to retirements of old people, and my understanding of the guy at the top is that he is a very capable person and a very decent guy.

So at this point it'll likely take a little time again to redo the process.

Watch for a press release coming very shortly!

Does that mean I am going to get paid?

https://www.nafa.ca/webcenter/portal...id=NAFA_021205


To: NAFA Customer

Saga Furs and North American Fur Auctions (NAFA) have today entered into an agreement to work together to secure a stable selling channel for NAFA’s customers both in Europe and North America. Utilizing its strong financial position, Saga Furs will start financing some of NAFA’s fur producing customers with immediate effect. The agreement also contemplates the integration of Saga Furs and NAFA solicitation teams in order to better serve the needs of the fur producing community in both Europe and North America.

With this agreement, Saga Furs and NAFA seek to address recent producer and market concerns as well as to provide fur producers with a solid platform through Saga Furs in which to sell their 2019 production. The combined offering will create the most versatile collection of different fur types, including mink, fox, finnraccoon and wild fur, available in the international market.

Further details about this agreement will be announced as they are finalized.


Sincerely,
Douglas Lawson
President & CEO
North American Fur Auctions

Very interesting

Saga furs
 

Hopefully wild fur doesn't take a secondary place in the markets with this agreement. Saga is primarily a "fur farmer" auction house, as per their website.

Wild fur has always been secondary for nafa. This whole thing sounds like it was about getting a massive loan to than give to the mink ranchers so they could continue on with production. Obviously the big banks said no thanks that's to risky were out.

Agree SAGA said they expected a large increase in farmed mink from this deal.

The only time I can recall SAGA selling wild fur was the March sales with FHA.

This was a save for the owners of NAFA that are 3/4 the fur farms and mink breeders association according to their website.

Will they still sell wild fur. Absolutely it’s a money maker for them but secondary to the fur farms.

The question is did SAGA just inject enough cash for NAFA farmers to pelt out and then they are going to fold or does SAGA want a foot hold in North America.

Two or Three years will tell.


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I'm hoping nafa will still have the wild fur auction in Toronto as normal and the ranch mink auction will be moved to Europe combined with sagas sale of mink. Fha already tried and said it was to expensive to sell the their wild fur over there.

Nafa
 

Guys still good news with Saga setting up partnership with NAFA. It will obviously make a stronger combined firm that bankers will support in the future. Our wild fur was always a secondary product with the mink and fox ranches producing the high volume fur.

We will be much smarter next week than we are right now. Hopefully a press release with good news?

If they don’t clear up the bounced checks before the last receiving date they will definitely not be seeing any of my fur.

Nafa is closing as of Thursday oct 31. Mary doesn’t have a job to go to Friday morning.

Omg

I dont know where some people gather thier information but after talking with a NAFA rep today they are still trying to get everything sorted out so that they can keep going.They are by no means definitely done so the fat lady isnt singin g yet

The only thing nafa was worried about was the mink ranchers that was made crystal clear

I talked to our fur pick up people from nipawin who are direct employees of nafa and they and Mary as well as other people are out of a job as of October 31. There is no fur pickup from them.

Curious what everyone's thoughts are on the loss of nafa whether or not it will bring the fur prices up in other fur buyers. Kinda new to the fur shipping stuff but have been following the nafa issues

Only one real option left to us for an auction house never a good thing. Little work and you can sell to other outlets but will stick to my original opinion that the more options the better.

Fur prices are not jumping this year but think it will hold and maybe improve slightly.


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far from the end of the world, now if buyers want something they only have one auction to buy it from, might actually be a benefit for us. Before they could play each other, maybe buy some private treaty stuff from nafa instead of bidding on it etc. It is pretty much the same buyers at both auctions anyway so I wouldnt worry about the buyers showing up. If your scared of FHA sounds like groenwold from the states is planning on making some routes up here to buy fur, ALOT of guys in the states like him and sell to him and often do better with him than the auctions. Personally I will be shipping everything to FHA for the first time.

I’m not interested but maybe someone else here is.

Facebook post from GFW Groenewold Fur and Wool:

ATTENTION CANADIAN TRAPPERS:

We have been discussing with some people and figuring out the best way to help service you trappers in Canada. What we are considering is to make a few stops in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Quebec, and Eastern Canada. We can maybe have 2-4 stops per province. We would find a building to use and trappers could bring all of their fur and meet us. We would grade your skins out right in front of you and if you are satisfied with the price we would write you a check on the spot. We will only be buying dry goods. We are buying everything except for wolves. The coyote market is still very strong. Other items are marketable, but at moderate prices. We are thinking the best time to come would be once in January and once in March.

I am open to any suggestions and am looking for people willing to help me set this up and get the word out. Thank you in advance and we look forward to building new relationships!

Feel free to contact us on Messenger or you can contact Bryce by phone or email.

Phone - 1-815-275-8201
Email - bkubly@gfwco.com

Might work but the would need an Alberta fur buyers license. And to hold this license your must be a resident of Alberta. Might be looking for a middle man.