The Management Board of AS VALMIERAS STIKLA ŠĶIEDRA (with registration No: 40003031676, legal address: Cempu iela 13, Valmiera, LV-4201) (‘Company’) hereby announces that due to significant unexpected losses during the extended start-up phase of P-D VALMIERA GLASS USA Corporation’s (‘US subsidiary’) Phase II operations, the Company, the major shareholder of P-D VALMIERA GLASS USA Corp., decided to search for an external investor.
The application for the legal protection process (‘LPP’) made in Latvia (more information on the application here, announcement about the LPP initiation here) was effectively due to a financial guarantee relating to the US operations. Moreover, all attempts to find an external investor for the Phase II operation have not been successful so far.
Due to the filing for the LPP in Latvia, financial support from the mother company AS VALMIERAS STIKLA ŠĶIEDRA (52% direct shareholder) can no longer be counted on.
Respectively, the US subsidiary was forced to stop its Phase II Fiberglass furnace operation effective immediately yesterday, June 17th at 2.30 pm EDT. More than 350 employees were made redundant yesterday.
In addition, the US subsidiary filed a voluntary petition for relief under Chapter 11 in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Georgia on June 17th at approximately 8 pm EDT.
The US subsidiary intends to continue to operate its Phase I Needle Mat division in the ordinary course of business while it formulates its reorganization plan around this profitable side of its business.
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It was in 2014 when the announcement was made that Valmiera would be coming to Laurens county.
Then in 2016 the Latvian business cut the ribbon officially on the facility with great fan fair.
And it was just a few months ago in April 2019 when Senator Perdue paid a visit to the facility to see how the plant offered training and apprenticeships.
