Hawker Beechcraft in talks with potential buyers
BY AP Wire Service
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
7/04/12 at 2:57 AM
WICHITA (AP) - Aircraft maker Hawker Beechcraft is narrowing down a list of potential buyers as part of its plan to emerge from bankruptcy reorganization.
In a disclosure statement filed over the weekend with its preliminary reorganization plan, Hawker Beechcraft said that along with investment banker Perella Weinberg Partners it developed a list of more than 35 possible buyers and investors in the months preceding its May 3 filing for Chapter 11, The Wichita Eagle reported Tuesday.
That list has been pared several times since, and talks have produced eight bids, according to the filing. Perella asked six bidders last month to send revised proposals.
The pre-arranged restructuring agreement filed by Hawker Beechcraft in May is intended to reduce the company's total funded debt of more than $2.5 billion. The company said at the time that more than two-thirds of its largest secured lenders and bondholders had agreed to the plan.
Wichita-based Hawker Beechcraft struggled like other aircraft makers from a general downturn in the business jet industry.
"Since the restructuring process began, we have been guided by a single goal: to emerge from Chapter 11 in the strongest possible operational and financial position while preserving as many jobs as possible," CEO Steve Miller and chairman Bill Boisture said in a letter to employees Monday.
The preliminary reorganization plan was filed in bankruptcy court in New York on Saturday, one day after Hawker Beechcraft issued 60-day layoff notices to 125 Wichita employees.
Those notices bring the total number of job cuts at the Wichita plant to 906 so far this year, reducing employment in the city to fewer than 4,100.
Original Print Headline: Buyer sought for Hawker Beechcraft
