Hostess Brands, the baking company known for sweet treats like Twinkies and Ding Dongs, filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, just three years after emerging from an earlier restructuring process.
The company, which has assets of roughly $1 billion, has been struggling under the weight of a debt load of about $860 million and soaring expenses tied to its labor force. Hostess has up to 100,000 creditors, and its chief unsecured creditors are labor unions and pension funds that represent the company’s employees, according to the Chapter 11 petition filed in United States Bankruptcy Court in lower Manhattan.
“We remain hopeful that we can reach an agreement that will allow us to amend our labor contracts so that we can emerge from Chapter 11 as a highly competitive company that provides secure jobs for our employees,” the company’s president and chief executive, Brian J. Driscoll, said in a statement. The statement added that Hostess did not anticipate disruptions to its normal sale of baked goods.
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