OXFORD – Eco Building Systems, formerly known as Oxford Homes, is set to temporarily lay off 93 employees, a company official said Wednesday.

“Contrary to the rumors, we have not closed,” said Richard Bottoms, accounting manager at the Route 26 plant. “We did announce a layoff on Monday of all personnel. We did not give a call-back date at this time.”

The move comes less than two months after another manufactured home builder in Oxford – Burlington Homes on Route 26 – went under, idling 70 workers.

Bottoms would not confirm or deny reports that a major investor has pulled out from the Boston-based company that bought Oxford Homes’ liabilities and limited debt last summer. Bottoms said business decisions are based on money.

“It always comes down to money,” he said. “But we’re looking forward to coming back to work.”

At the time of the transition from Oxford Homes to Eco Building Systems, the company owed more than $318,000 in unsecured loans to nine creditors from across New England.

The creditors petitioned the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Portland last summer to force the company into liquidation in order to recoup their losses. Petitioning creditors represented about 22 percent of the estimated $1.4 million in outstanding secured and unsecured loans.

“We had been offered only nine cents on the dollar before filing. We deemed it not fair. In our ignorance of the true state of affairs we were not ready to give the benefit of the doubt to the principals. We think now they probably did the best they could,” said Attorney Matthew S. Goldfarb of Goldfarb & Associates in Portland, who represents the nine creditors in the bankruptcy proceedings.

It appears now the creditors will receive 20 to 21 cents on the dollar for the $318,000 they are owed by Oxford Homes, Goldfarb said Wednesday.

“The decisions they were making were sound,” said Goldfarb of the company’s financial affairs. “They acted honorably under difficult circumstances. We tip our hats to them.”

Goldfarb said the company’s financial disclosures and testimony by Bottoms and President Peter Connell during court hearings show that until November or December 2007, the company was holding its own financially.

It was about then that Burlington Homes of Maine laid off its 70-plus employees as a prelude to shutting down the plant entirely in February after 14 years of business at the Route 26 plant in Oxford.

“We deemed it as a bleak future for the next four to six quarters. It was not a sound business decision to go forward,” Don Chadwell of Bridgton, vice president of Burlington Homes, said then.

“It’s a front-loaded type of business,” Bottoms said. Manufacturing housing businesses incur most of their costs up front and need cash to operate, he explained. “It’s been a tough year for all building businesses,” Bottoms said. “Profits have been marginal. We’ve not been able to build at the number of homes we hoped.”

Bottoms said there are several houses on the Route 26 lot that he hopes to see completed. “The issue is that we need to get specific materials in here to finish,” he said. Those materials also need to be paid for, he said.

Employees will be updated on Friday about the situation, he said.

Meanwhile, a skeleton staff of security and a telephone operator will be kept on hand while the shutdown is in place.