EUGENE, Ore. -- A pipe plant once owned by PW Eagle Inc. of Eugene is closing, employees and the plant manager say, a year after two hedge funds won control of the company and it was sold to a competitor.

The closure is expected to cost the jobs of 47 hourly employees and nine salaried workers, according to the company's layoffs notice filed Tuesday with the state government. The plant, in the town of Glenwood near Eugene, was operating under the new corporate name, JM Eagle. The notices are required by federal law.

After its stock price shot up from $10 a share to $24 a share in 2005, PW Eagle, then one of two publicly traded companies with headquarters in Eugene, attracted the attention of two hedge funds.

By the spring of 2006, Pirate Capital and Caxton Associates had acquired enough PW Eagle stock to control the company.

PW Eagle's board of directors was expanded and seats were given to the hedge funds' representatives after they threatened a fight for votes at the annual shareholders meeting.

At the board's first meeting, a committee was formed to look at ways to get the most value from the company for shareholders.

PW Eagle's then-chief executive, Jerry Dukes, said employees shouldn't worry about their jobs. "If you have a plant that's performing well and making money, it's not going to go away," he said.

About six months later, in January 2007, the company announced that J-M Manufacturing of Livingston, N.J., was purchasing it. At the time of the sale, PW Eagle used 12 factories in eight states to make pipes and fittings used to transport water, electricity and sewage. The sale closed June 22, and the resulting company was named JM Eagle.