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Posted on 11/29/2012 8:18:43 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
New York - Hostess Brands got final approval for its wind-down plans in bankruptcy court Thursday, setting the stage for its roster of snack cakes to find a second life with new owners - even as 18,000 jobs will be wiped out.
The company said in court that it's in talks with 110 potential buyers for its iconic brands, which also include Ding Dongs and Ho Hos. The suitors include at least five national retailers, such as supermarkets, according to a financial adviser for the company. The process has been "so fast and furious," Hostess hasn't been able to make the calls seeking buyers it previously intended, said Joshua Scherer of Perella Weinberg Partners...
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Twinkies, hecho in Mexico...
I wonder if those union workers are having any second thoughts? They’ll probably coast on UE for 2 years but what will that do for their employment opportunities in the future?
I hope they make a ton of money and stick it to the union!
I will go mad if I don’t get another Devil Dog for the rest of MY life!!!
Whoever buys it, PLEASE keep to the recipe!
It’s going to get parted out
Whether the workers get the same salaries and bennies is still up in the air.
Mother's and Archway were put temporarily out-of-business due to speculative LBO's, but they are both back and operating.
“Even as 18000 jobs are wiped out”
...that is comedy at it’s best! More like 18000 union goombahs! Bwahahahahahahahaha
I just love the waxy petroleum aftertaste of DingDongs!
Labor Union File.
I read somewhere that they are seeking permission to give out a treasure chest of bonuses as they go bankrupt.
By the way, does anyone else find it funny that these objets are called Hostess? Would you invite people over and serve them Twinkies? The time-honored practice of calling things what they aren’t in order to move the crap off the shelves.
That name is almost 100 years old. Things were much different back then.
Good, I think. Lots of companies grow by acquisitions that never realize the synergies they were based on, and would be more profitable if they were parted out. Not only will the companies who end up owing pieces of Hostess shed the unions (they’re nuts if they don’t at least) - but they may be smaller privately-held companies who aren’t under the quarterly pressure faced by public companies that often results in them doing insane things just to “make the numbers”
I wouldn’t be surprised if in 10 years the new companies end up with more then 18,000 employees. Creative destruction at work.
Many of these companies probably already own their own bakeries and only need the brand name rights and recipes.
Homemade goodies were even better back then, and it was even more ridiculous to serve any store-bought tripe to guests. Regardless of Madison Avenue misnomers.
Are Uneeda Biscuits still around? You don’t need them and they’re not biscuits.
Kinda sucks that Hostess got themselves into this mess in the first place
by allowing Unions control over their business. I may start buying twinkies again
since the union will be gone. I won't eat them but the food bank would love them I'm sure.
“I read somewhere that they are seeking permission to give out a treasure chest of bonuses as they go bankrupt.”
OK, you’ve made the allegation, now give us the site, or are you just stirring some pot?
It was on Drudge yesterday. It comes up as the first result if you put "Hostess" into Google.
You're exactly right in that many highly interested buyers will be existing novelty food bakers. In fact, some could already bake Hostess products on a toll basis. The equipment used for novelty baking is generic and to swap from one product to another simply means a recipe change, different pans, different oven conditions, packaging, etc.
These bakeries basically schedule production for a 1 day run that will be about 10 to 14 hours of production, 6 hours of sanitation that includes disassembly of a lot of of the equipment and last reconfiguring the equipment and preparing new batters, etc.
When I heard about the million dollar bonuses upper management wanted the court to approve in the bankruptcy I figured the union employees had it right that something is seriously wrong with the company. clearly the problem was not just the unions.
i could see little debbie making a grab for this.
someone was mentioning a lot of equipment was pretty old.
Hmmm so what you are saying is Little Debbie can't wait to get her hands on Ding Dongs?
I believe the deal will involve the brands going with some bakeries, but it’s more of a real estate deal than an operational deal. Part of the problem with Hostess is that they have outdated equipment at the bakeries and they haven’t gone through a modernization process (the cost was prohibitive). Also, if you start operating the bakeries, you are generally in union territory and they expect you to rehire the employees. I would say there is zero chance that anyone wants to get back into the same business model that Hostess was operating.
At the heart of the matter....if you go back a decade...Hostess had looked at their business model and knew there were problems. They could not get past the point of rebuilding the business model with the current contracts that they had with the union. It’s the same problem of the US postal system. When Hostess even offered to give the union a quarter of the stock and two seats on the board, in exchange for just a eight percent salary cut and employees paying seventeen percent of their medical insurance....that went nowhere.
Those 18k bakers? The union might be able to find replacement jobs for a 1k of them within a year, but the vast majority are finished in their local areas. Either they move, or they have to develop new job skills. It’s a bad deal for them....but it’s what they wanted in the end. Let them walk off into the sunset....as they desired.
Baxter, are you listening?
Hostess and its labor force can go to hell as far as I'm concerned. I haven't bought any of their output in decades. But, nevertheless, I'd be amused at the spectacle of a fully automated Hostess Brands successor.
The heck with ding dongs and twinkies. It’s the DRAKES CAKES that have the best recipes in the bunch.
Devil Dogs, Ring Dings, Drakes cupcakes, Drakes Coffee Cakes (Seinfeld actually did an episode on these) Funny Bones, Yodels, and those delicious little apple pies. Believe me, there is a big taste difference between Ding Dongs and Ring Dings.
I hope, I hope, I hope someone buys and makes the Drakes recipes. But with the Hostess thrift shop gone, I doubt I’ll ever get them for a dollar a box again. Michelle O must be so happy, the evil witch. I hope she chokes.
So, if Hostess is going out of business, and they are selling all of their assets, what are they supposed to do with the money?
Give it away to the union thugs who killed the company?
Or maybe they should just hand it over to Obamaclaus so he can decide who’s been naughty or nice.
Wouldn’t that make Little Debbie a Ho Ho?
Here's an excerpt from the link firebrand posted above:
"Hostess Brands Inc., in the midst of winding down its business, won approval Thursday from a federal bankruptcy judge to give as much as $1.75 million in bonuses to its executives.
The money is intended as an incentive for 19 top-level managers to remain with the Twinkies and Ding Dongs maker to oversee its liquidation.
The payouts will be granted only if managers "achieve a set of specific tasks and goals within a specified time frame that are designed to speed and lower the cost of the wind-down," Hostess spokesman Lance Ignon said.
The maximum bonus amount, Ignon said, represents 0.07% of Hostess' revenue and 0.17% of the value of its assets and is below the average for bonuses in comparable bankruptcy cases. Hostess Chief Executive Greg Rayburn would be not be eligible for a bonus, Ignon said."
BTW, Those are the first 4 paragraphs. It's $1.75 million spread across 19 managers, and contingent on specific goals regarding the wind-down. Additionally, the CEO doesn't qualify for a bonus.
I assume they have creditors whom they can’t pay, or have to pay cents on the dollar. Isn’t that what usually happens in a bankruptcy? They were given the privilege of rewarding themselves first, with a bunch of verbiage to justify it, and the creditors then get less of what they are owed.
Just thinking of the other companies. Not the unions who drove them into the ground.
From the fourth paragraph of the article: "Hostess seeks approval in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York in White Plains, N.Y. to give its top executives bonuses totaling up to $1.8 million as part of its wind-down plans."
Do you like to eat Little Debbie?
Posting more “Food Porn” my little cupcake?
I’ll have you know that for breakfast I had organic pork sausage.
I know it was organic because it came from a real pig with real organs. For the benefits of the other organless foods on my plate, I played some Bach Fugues by E. Power Biggs in the background.
I had organic granola, sans organs...unless you count rasins.
[with unwanted Christmas music in the background]
Bah, humbug.
I have agreat marketing device for Tasty Cakes which would bring 18,00 jobs to our are. Since ‘Ho-Ho’s” were named from the first two letters of it’s parent company, Tasty Cakes should buy it out and rename the cake (with pink filling and a brown chocolate Hershey kiss in the middle)to Tasty Cakes Ta-Ta’s! Perfect!!
“Devil Dogs, Ring Dings, Drakes cupcakes, Drakes Coffee Cakes (Seinfeld actually did an episode on these) Funny Bones, Yodels, and those delicious little apple pies. Believe me, there is a big taste difference between Ding Dongs and Ring Dings.”
Absolutely true. Yes yes yes. Ring Dings are IT! Ding Dongs are just a poor copy, not at all making the grade.
Honestly, for years I have lamented the fact that in Phx Az it’s so hard to find Devil Dogs, and it seems they were much bigger when I was a kid, but then it seems so was everything;)
But I think they really were.
Not sure if that was supposed to change my mind but it does not. It seems times have changed since the last time I dealt with a trustee overseeing a company reorganization. Admittedly it has been a long time.
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