Farmtrac North America may be sold.

Attorney Jim Marrow, who is the court-appointed receiver for the Tarboro company that has been shut down since January, has received a $10 million offer to buy the beleaguered Tarboro firm.

Marrow filed the motion to sell in Edgecombe County Superior Court on Monday and now must wait 10 days for any upset bids or objections. As the receiver, Marrow is authorized the sell the real and personal property of Farmtrac.

Judge Frank Brown is expected to rule on the sale on Nov. 3.

The offer is from LS Mtron Ltd. of Seoul, Korea, formerly LS Cable, which recently reorganized. Earlier this year, LS Cable purchased Superior Essex, which has a facility in Tarboro.

LS Cable was one of the two suppliers of basic units for Farmtrac and is owed $11.6 million.

The offer includes the purchase at the plant at 111 Fairview St. off Main Street, the company store on West Northern Boulevard and all Farmtrac's tractors and parts.

Most of the cash will be claimed by Textron Financial Corp., which has stated it is owed about $13 million.

Since LS Mtron is buying the manufacturing facility on Main Street, speculation is that many of the 180 employees that were laid off on Jan. 18 will be put back to work. Jae-Yong Sim, a senior manager with LS Mtron, was in town Tuesday but unavailable for comment.

"I feel having people here that can get the work done was a major factor in the sale," Marrow said. "There is a lot of talent here.

"The difficulty this company had was not the doing of the employees."

A ruling in Edgecombe County Superior Court in late February placed the troubled firm into receivership.

According to court documents, the six-decade old tractor manufacturer has more than $55 million in total liabilities.

Since Farmtrac closed its doors and Marrow was appointed receiver, the tobacco barn division was sold to Richard C. Anderson of Leggett and Robert H. Pope of Rocky Mount for $650,000 and a salvage auction in April raised $340,000.

Marrow said most of the money from the barn sale went to Textron.