Hickory Springs Manufacturing

Hickory Springs Manufacturing

Hickory Springs Manufacturing's retirement plan was established in 1970 as a defined-benefit scheme serving eligible employees of HSM Solutions and its manufacturing subsidiaries across North Carolina. The plan is the deferred compensation vehicle for a workforce historically tied to furniture springs, bedding components, and industrial wire — businesses launched by founder Parks Underdown Sr. in 1944. While the Underdown family, including Parks 'Neil' Underdown Jr., David Underdown, and Mark Underdown, retained multi-generational ownership of the operating company, HSM's foam production assets were acquired by Arsenal Capital Partners in 2016 to form Elite Comfort Solutions, with HSM continuing as a strategic partner and fabricator. The plan's investment strategy is discretely focused on distressed debt, a category typically pursued by dedicated credit funds and family offices rather than pension plans of this scale. Its asset base — estimated at roughly $124M — is modest relative to public pension systems but substantial for a single-employer manufacturing plan. HSM maintains physical operations across multiple states, including a wire-drawing complex in Conover, North Carolina, a manufacturing facility in Verona, Mississippi, and an additional plant in Barberton, Ohio. The plan's sponsoring employer participates in industry standards bodies like the International Sleep Products Association and the Polyurethane Foam Association, where long-time technical executive Bobby Bush Jr. previously chaired the PFA Technical Committee. Current CEO Michael Hinshaw guides the operating company, though his direct involvement in pension investment decisions is not disclosed. The firm maintains a corporate jet alongside its industrial property portfolio, and the Underdown family supports community initiatives through the Underdown Family Foundation. The structural distinction of the Hickory Springs retirement plan lies in its embeddedness within a multi-generational family manufacturing business that has partially divested core operating assets. The plan functions not as a stand-alone institutional investor but as the retirement obligation of a private industrial company — a posture where distressed debt allocation may reflect both opportunity-seeking and the liability-driven constraints of a pension fund supporting an aging factory workforce.