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FEMA looking for housing, RVs
Manufactured housing stocks rally after Katrina
By Padraic Cassidy, MarketWatch
Last Update: 12:30 PM ET Sept. 1, 2005
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - At the end of last week, shares of Fleetwood Enterprises Inc., the Riverside, Calif. maker of recreational vehicles and manufactured homes, reached a low of $8.80, one-third its price a year earlier.
But then on Monday, Hurricane Katrina roared inland, leaving up to 1 million people homeless.
By early Thursday, shares of Fleetwood Enterprises (FLE: news, chart, profile) were up more than 5% to $10.64; Champion Enterprises Inc. (CHB: news, chart, profile) was higher by 1.1% to $13.48; Cavalier Homes Inc. (CAV: news, chart, profile) shares rose 20.1% to $5.92; and Coachmen Industries Inc. (COA: news, chart, profile) shares climbed 5.1% to $14.15.
On Wednesday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency broadcast a call for the RV and manufactured housing makers to help the federal government deal with housing needs in New Orleans, where 80% of the city was flooded.
The trade group Manufactured Housing Institute, working with FEMA, asked retailers and manufacturers to "fax all available inventory" that's ready to ship to the agency and the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development.
Louisiana ranks seventh in the U.S. so far in 2005, representing 3.6% of mobile home industry shipments, with Alabama seventh and Mississippi 14th, according to BB&T analyst John Diffendal.
Diffendal estimated that FEMA used about 13,000 travel trailers in Florida and about 500 in Alabama after the 2004 hurricane season, "so this event could require some multiple of last year's needs."
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