World Kitchen bankrupt
ELMIRA, N.Y. (AP) - The parent company of World Kitchen Inc., maker of Pyrex bakeware, Corelle dishes and CorningWare pans, filed for bankruptcy protection Friday.
The corporation operates a plant in Charleroi that employs about 400 workers.
In recent months, management asked employees in Charleroi to take nonwage cuts in compensation.
Union employees voted down the measure.
A new manager recently was hired at the Charleroi plant.
WKI Holding Co. agreed to a voluntary Chapter 11 filing in reaching a restructuring deal with key stakeholders that will reduce its debt from $812 million to $373 million.
''We're not going out of business,'' spokesman David Lanzillo said. ''The action is about our balance sheet. World Kitchen has a solid business model, we have great brands, good customer services, margins that support a profitable business. We simply are carrying too much debt.''
The company, he said, expects to re-emerge from bankruptcy protection in ''a matter of months.''
World Kitchen employs about 2,900 people in the United States.
It moved its headquarters to Reston, Va., last spring from Big Flats near here. Its marketing and product development offices remained in Elmira and Chicago.
It produces Pyrex in Charleroi, metal bakeware in Massillon, Ohio, and Corelle products in Corning, western New York.
World Kitchen employs roughly 400 at its Charleroi site.
Glass has been manufactured at the Charleroi site for more than 100 years.
World Kitchen, formerly Corning Inc., has been an affiliate of the Borden Family of Companies since April 1998.
The company manufactures glass, glass ceramic and metal cookware, bakeware and kitchenware.
As a member of the Borden Family, World Kitchen is privately owned by its own management and by affiliates of the investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
In 1999, World Kitchen acquired two other major kitchenware companies - the Ekco Group and General Housewares.
Attempts were unsuccessful to reach state Rep. Peter Daley, D-California; Charleroi Mayor Edward Paluso; and Tony Lazzari, local president of United Steelworkers of America-Aluminum, Brick and Glass Workers Local 53-G.
