Competitive Victim : Four Winds Shuts Down a Money-Loser

SAN DIEGO —  Four Winds Enterprises has closed a money-losing subsidiary for transporting domestic household contents, the same branch that generated about 20% of the company’s $100 million in revenues last year, the company said Tuesday.

Remaining in business are Four Winds’ international household moving businesses, which will generate $85 million to $95 million in 1987 sales, Four Winds founder and Chairman Richard Arendsee said.

Revenue for the company--which also owns a small software company and a San Diego travel agency--peaked at about $130 million three years ago, according to spokesman Hugh Crumpler. In recent years, the company has been hit by losses and a drop in revenues, partly because of increased competition and deregulation within the transport industry.

Arendsee said that Four Winds’ domestic business was “having a hard time” competing against larger moving companies. “It was terribly difficult with a small fleet to compete with (larger van lines) with 10,000 or 12,000 trucks,” he said.

Arendsee said 1987 will be a “break-even year” for Four Winds Enterprises, largely because of losses accumulated in domestic business. He described the company’s remaining businesses as profitable.

The domestic moving company employed about 40 people in San Diego. All but six employees were lost through attrition during recent months, according to Arendsee, who said the decision to close the division was made two years ago.

Four Winds’ two international operations have about 600 employees around the world. About 180 employees work at the company’s San Diego headquarters. Four Winds has offices around the United States and in about a dozen foreign countries.

Half of the company’s revenue is generated by a division that moves households for the Armed Forces. The remainder of Four Winds’ revenue is generated by a second division that handles household moves for corporations.

Four Winds has failed to consummate two recent agreements to sell its businesses to larger transport concerns, said Arendsee, the company’s sole owner.

In 1986, a deal to sell Four Winds to Meyers Group, a New York-based freight company, fell through. Earlier this year, Four Winds’ deal to be acquired by NFC International, a U.S.-based subsidiary of a British moving company, was scuttled.