I’m putting on my work hat for a second... I’m an EHS manager and have seen some industrial messes. I have also been part of a couple cleanups that I inherited.
200 year old facility sounds really cool, but in reality what that means is maintenance nightmare for upkeep, lots of risk for abating all kinds of stuff (almost guaranteed to find asbestos somewhere) from spills, poor practices in days past, and deliberately deceptive practices of burying things. There is great financial risk at that plant without even considering anything beyond real estate. Cradle to grave laws, Superfund, SARA, and especially CERCLA are things to be mindful of, but with all things the current owner is the one most liable until the bank account runs dry. The best thing that could happen to that facility (for current owners anyway) honestly is for it to be used as a warehouse rented out to industrial groups to store old crap that nobody wants to see anymore because that means less movement, less people, less exposure, and less eyes to find that smoking gun that gets the big bucks rolling... and thanks to CERCLA if they can tie another company to an illegal waste site then they buy into the cleanup as well unless they can prove that they didn’t contribute to the mess. Lease it out cheap, fill it up fast, and let it scrape by just covering the taxes on the property as a break-even or low profit investment.
There are also some stupid things that may or may not apply. Some environmental laws exist such that once you make the naughty list your stuck on it essentially forever. Title V air permits for example. It’s not hard to comply because each permit is essentially a manual on how to run your program to stay in compliance, but the permittee has a big say in how the original document is written, and if it’s antiquated or expensive to follow it needs revised and revision takes a lot of legal legwork which means $$$$$. Roundhill wasn’t there to have a say in any of the permits or means of compliance that are written into the permits, so again, risk of fines for running afoul of Mr Cuomo and his appointed environmental goons.
Now we get into equipment. Machinery used to make anything in industrial scale is going to fall under OSHA or a state run program very similar to it. The kicker here is that many states allow for machinery to be guarded only to the standard which was applicable at the time when the machine was built or last overhauled. We are talking about machines that likely need major work, so there will be expense there, expense on the safety side as well making it meet modern standards following the overhauls, and further financial risk until the machinery is brought up to code. I haven’t seen the equipment so I can’t even roughly guess as to what the expense will be, but it is likely to be substantial bordering on astronomical to do it right. Some states per my understanding want equipment brought up to code when it is operated by new owners as it has technically been recently acquired and by such logic it must meet current standard. I feel like NY probably found that logic by now.
On to the topic of the guns themselves. Remington kinda sucks. I hate to say it and I really hate to be so blunt about it, and I like Remington. Model 700 is an old design. It’s old enough that all protections on it have either expired or are expiring and there are already SEVERAL players in the game outplaying Remington at the game Remington invented. Same for the 870. 1187 and 1100 I’m not so sure about but they are basically all antiquated designs by any stretch of the imagination. Versamax maybe has some value and some proprietary protections but I’m not sure, and I don’t know anybody who has recently been excited about ANY Remington firearm product. Adding insult to injury is a state hostile towards their product and likely a workforce who also is at least in part morally opposed to producing those evil pieces metal called guns.
So where are we... we are left with a company making products in a limited market for product sales, in a company recently known for questionable quality and dangerous products that are made on antiquated equipment sitting in a maintenance nightmare building with god knows what under the floor and in the dirt, in a state that hates us from the legislature down. There are risks of fines, fees, and expense at every turn, and since its one of the biggest names in the industry everybody is watching and waiting for the first big blowup to happen... and they BOUGHT this mess for 13 million. No thanks.
And meanwhile the investment bankers who used Remington as a cash cow to strip assets and run it into the ground now have Some degree of financial responsibility forever for any remediation work that has to be done on the site. 13 million is a bad deal for them. Yeah they got rid of the mess, but expenses could easily top what they got for the business. Their best bet would have been to transfer the property out of Remington through an inside sale of the real estate so that they maintain control and avoid risk. Sometimes it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie, or in this case let sleeping dogs be turned into rented warehouse space.