Ding Dong The Twinkies Are Dead

[AUChizad]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-hostess-brands-seeks-court-permission-to-liquidate-20121116,0,3175964.story

No more Twinkies? Hostess plans to shut down
Hostess CEO says strike was fatal blow bankrupt company and that it is too late to fix it. Nearly 600 could lose jobs in Schiller Park and Hodgkins bakeries.

Indiana Hostess plants could shut down after workers strike.

7:36 a.m. CST, November 16, 2012

Hostess Brands Inc., the bankrupt maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, said it had sought court permission to go out of business after failing to get wage and benefit cuts from thousands of its striking bakery workers.

Hostess said a national strike by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union that began last week had crippled its ability to produce and deliver products at several facilities.

Hostess Chief Executive Gregory Rayburn said in an interview on CNBC Friday morning that Hostess could not avoid liquidation, even if members of its bakers' union ended their strike immediately and went back to work.

The liquidation of the company will mean that most of its 18,500 employees will lose their jobs, Hostess said on Friday.

In the Chicago area, Hostess employs about 300 workers making CupCakes, HoHos and Honey Buns in Schiller Park. Hostess also has a bakery in Hodgkins, where 325 workers make Beefsteak, Butternut, Home Pride, Nature’s Pride and Wonder breads.

The 82-year-old company said it took the decision to shut down after determining that not enough employees had returned to work by a deadline on Thursday.

The company, which filed for bankruptcy in January for the second time since 2004, said it had filed a motion with U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, New York, for permission to shut down and sell assets.

Irving, Texas-based Hostess has 565 distribution centers and 570 bakery outlet stores, as well as the 33 bakeries. Its brands include Wonder, Nature's Pride, Dolly Madison, Drake's, Butternut, Home Pride and Merita, but it is probably best known for Twinkies -- basically a cream-filled sponge cake.

"We deeply regret the necessity of today's decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike," Chief Executive Gregory Rayburn said in a statement.

"Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders," Rayburn added.

Union President Frank Hurt said on Thursday that the crisis at the company was the "result of nearly a decade of financial and operational mismanagement" and that management was trying to make union workers the scapegoats for a plan by Wall Street investors to sell Hostess.

Hostess said its debtor-in-possession lenders had agreed to allow the it to continue to have access to $75 million to fund the wind-down process.

"There's no way to soften the fact that this will hurt every Hostess Brands employee. All Hostess Brands employees will eventually lose their jobs - some sooner than others," Rayburn said in a letter to employees.

The company has canceled all orders in process with its suppliers and said any product in transit would be returned to the shipper.

In its filing with the court, the company said it would have incurred a loss of between $7.5 million and $9.5 million from Nov. 9 to Nov. 19 in lost sales and increased costs.

"These losses and other factors, including increased vendor payment terms contraction, have resulted in a significant weakening of the debtors' cash position and, if continued, would soon result in the debtors completely running out of cash," it said.

Hostess had already reached agreement on pay and benefit cuts with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, its largest union.

The case is In re: Hostess Brands Inc, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-22052.

Sad news. Even more than Twinkies, I'm gonna miss

[AUChizad]

WELCOME TO OBAMA'S AMERICA!!!

[Godfather]

OBAMA hates the yellow cake!


Fuck could this year get any worse?

[GH2001]

WELCOME TO OBAMA'S AMERICA!!!

I would say so. Seeing his recent siding with all things union. Please tell me you don't side with these corrupt unions that caused this.

[Tarheel]

WELCOME TO OBAMA'S AMERICA!!!

I assume you're being sarcastic but would you prefer yet another bail-out?  What's another $10 million dollars amongst friends if it "saves" a few more Democrat, Union voters' jobs.  This is what the unions have wrought.

[Snaggletiger]

Chad loves the dong

[Tarheel]

Chad loves the dong

"Let them eat cake."

[Snaggletiger]

"Let them eat cake."

You there.  Cake or death?

[AUTiger1]

"Let them eat cake."

Behead this man!

[Tarheel]

Behead this man!

"I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society. To my country, I wish to give the ten years which I will spend in jail if my country exists no longer. I will spend them in memory and in gratitude for what my country has been. It will be my act of loyalty, my refusal to live or work in what has taken its place."

[Snaggletiger]

"I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society. To my country, I wish to give the ten years which I will spend in jail if my country exists no longer. I will spend them in memory and in gratitude for what my country has been. It will be my act of loyalty, my refusal to live or work in what has taken its place."

Only on the X can we go from Hostess Ding Dongs to this in 10 posts or less.

[AUTiger1]

"I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society. To my country, I wish to give the ten years which I will spend in jail if my country exists no longer. I will spend them in memory and in gratitude for what my country has been. It will be my act of loyalty, my refusal to live or work in what has taken its place."

"The only good a man can do to others and the only statement to their proper relationship is-Hands off!" 

[Tarheel]

Only on the X can we go from Hostess Ding Dongs to this in 10 posts or less.

"I have not yet begun to fight!", friend.

[Tarheel]

"The only good a man can do to others and the only statement to their proper relationship is-Hands off!"

I'm betting that you and I have the same books in our libraries.

[AUTiger1]

I'm betting that you and I have the same books in our libraries.

We have many leather bound books!

I have mostly history, political and several of the classics (Poe, Dickinson, Chaucer, Shakesphere..etc..etc).  I am about to start the complete works of Poe.....again.   

Weird but two of my favorite books in my collection were from my Eng Lit I and II classes. Beowulf, Sir Gawain, oh how I loved that class.  I do have the one offs like the Hunger Games trilogy.

[Godfather]

"Let them eat cake."

What's with the knife?

[AUTiger1]

What's with the knife?

Yo, she called you retarded.

[AUTiger1]

And if you don't love Eliza Dushku then GTFO!

[Saniflush]

Yo, she called you retarded.

I think I filled the cup.

[AUTiger1]

I think I filled the cup.

What the fuck is the Internet?