Bankrupt E-Waste Recycler Announces Close-Down; Eliminates Over 300 Jobs

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Market-leader in e-waste recycling services, Santa Clara-headquartered ECS Refining, Inc. has been ordered to sell its assets and close down, which in turn will result in elimination of over 300 jobs. The order to this effect was issued by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Bardwil. A final hearing is scheduled for July 17, 2018 at 10.30 a.m.

The plan authorizes W. Donald Gieseke-the bankruptcy trustee, who has been running the company for the past two months, to make necessary cash spending to close down the company. The judge approved the plan to spend $657,000 from the $1.06 million net book cash available. Majority of this cash would go towards final paychecks to its employees. In addition, the company estimates the total environment costs to remove piled up electronic scrap items from sites at nearly $1 million.

Earlier in April this year, the company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of California. At that time, the company had stated that the bankruptcy filing was being made to prevent attempted takeover of the company by the private equity firm SummitBridge, which had purchased a lion’s share of the ECS debts. As per estimations, the company had liabilities totaling $32.57 million, including nearly $26 million in secured debt owed to SummitBridge.

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The court-appointed trustee had made all attempts to sell ECS Refining, Inc. as an intact, operating company, thereby securing jobs of all employees. However, the attempts were in vain as only a single bid was submitted, that too by company insiders, which was not acceptable to SummitBridge. Following this, SummitBridge demanded that the company be closed at the earliest.

This story originally appeared in www.resource-recycling.com