Yes Andy, you digress. The view that housing (or industrial land) is an investment that should yield a return causes all sorts of angst. Talk to anyone wanting to buy their first home. But I digress too.
Back to the company I know absolutely nothing about, it could also be that the owner, sick of the points I mentioned in #6 and burdened by real estate as in #7, paying exorbitant interest rates as in #10, has been doing 60 hours + of work each week.
This 60 hour week is exacerbated by thinking about the business during remaining awake hours. The net result is kids that he hardly knows, a wife who thinks she is married to a machine shop, and a general feeling that life must hold something better than just a continual grind to make toys for others when the return is sweet FA.
Realising that the sale of the business is impossible because return on investment is less than bank interest (thanks to the real estate value), the owner may have simply decided to get out while the going is good by liquidating the assets.
Hopefully they end up with something more than a debt and can get on with something more fulfilling.
All pure speculation of course, I don't know these folk but I wish them well. Building aircraft engines has been the dream of many, at least they lived it for a while.
As for Jabiru, I also sincerely wish them well and hope they don't find themselves in a similar position. I for one think the machine would be improved with a Rotax 912.