回复: 急招我们牛肉的投资人,牛肉厂要破产了。大家报名集体诉讼
看了报道,是因为缺乏流动资金,买不了足够的牛来屠宰,所以生产线开工不足,因此裁了100多人,裁员和破产是两回事,不至于如此灰心。
另外,就破产来说,这个项目目前好像没有贷款,钱都是借的eb5的,似乎也没有其它债务,没债的话,怎么会破产呢?我到觉得不必太焦虑。
Northern Beef Packers laid off 108 workers on Thursday because of a lack of working capital to buy and process cattle, plant officials said.
The plant south of Aberdeen needs to raise about $20 million, said David Palmer, CEO, at a news conference at the Ramkota Thursday afternoon.
The layoff is expected to be short term, he said.
"This is an unfortunate setback, but we are confident that this is only temporary," he said. "The employees at Northern Beef Packers have been our biggest asset thus far, and we expect to begin rehiring and expanding our operation as soon as the additional financing is in place."
Employees could be called back as soon as mid- or late July, he said.
Northern Beef had about 420 employees before the layoff. Those let go were mostly production employees on the slaughter and packaging sides of the plant, said A.J. Munger, director of business development, pricing and marketing.
While the employees will not receive a severance package, they will receive payment for accumulated vacation time and will have the option of continuing their group health care coverage at their expense, Palmer said.
Munger said the problem has been a lack of financing, which has prevented the plant from buying cattle.
"Cattle availability is not the issue," he said. "This is not related to cattle producers. They have continued to support us."
The plant has been killing about 200 cattle a day, Palmer said. The highest number slaughtered was 420, but there were days when no cattle were slaughtered, said plant officials.
Northern Beef, which started slaughtering in October, had expected to ramp up production quickly to a maximum of 1,500 cattle per day. Munger said the reason the plant was not able to ramp up production was not because of any problems in the production line.
"Our employees have been very good," he said. "The reason is that we needed more working capital to buy cattle."
In January, the plant issued a news release saying that it had completed its final round of financing, bringing the total finance package to $150 million. At that time, plant officials said the plant had enough money to expand production.
Now Northern Beef is looking for more funding.
"The company is working with a number of prospective investors," according to a Northern Beef news release. "The negotiations are confidential at this time. The investors are additional foreign investors like those that have already funded a significant portion of the construction costs for its current plant, international trading companies, established food companies and financial investors."
Until new financing is in place, production will be restricted. The plant needs to be able to slaughter cattle at a high rate to be profitable, said Steve Kaiser, acting public relations director. That number is a bit of a moving target, but the plant isn't near it, he said.
"We can't buy them and lose money on them," Munger said.
David Lout, 25, said he was one of those laid off Thursday at Northern Beef Packers.
He said names were called out, and it was explained that the layoffs were due to finances.
"They said they were hoping to call people back each week and were hoping to have everybody hired back by July 15," he said.
He said he worked full time in the sales cooler, sorting beef and putting different grades of beef onto the rails after it was graded.
Lout, who is from Aberdeen, has been working at the plant since the end of October.
He said there weren't any outward signs of impending layoffs or financial troubles, though he said cattle were not being processed every day.
"They were only processing cattle three days a week, and two days of the week, we were pushing brooms," Lout said.
Lout said he will try to find full-time employment elsewhere and has another part-time job.
Referring to the workers laid off, Mayor Mike Levsen expressed hope that “the management succeeds in their desire to bring them back.”
Many of the people laid off “have moved here to work at this and make this a better community,” Levsen said. He hopes that “this won't be a huge disruption in their lives and we can do right by them for making a commitment to us. And the best result for them would be for them to get their jobs back, and we'll be optimistic that that can happen.”
— By Connie Groop and Jeff Natalie-Lees,
cgroop@aberdeennews.com and
jnatalie-lees@aberdeennews.com American News
7:29 p.m. CDT, April 25, 2013