Parmalat to slash workforce

MILAN – Parmalat will slash almost half its workforce as it sells or liquidates units in 20 countries in an effort to keep the insolvent food group afloat, a plan unveiled on Friday showed.

At a first meeting with international creditors the Italian-based firm’s new managers asked banks and bondholders to work hand-in-hand to keep the scandal-hit group going. Administrator Enrico Bondi told the representatives of 30 banks and 20 bondholder groups that Parmalat was in talks to sell US dairy assets and it planned to pull out of much of Latin America and Asia to focus on Europe, Canada and Australia.Parmalat’s worldwide workforce would plunge to under 17 000 from 32 000 as the axe was taken to its 30-nation empire – once a point of pride at one of Italy’s most global companies.With many of the people who turned Parmalat into the nation’s eighth biggest industrial group now in jail as investigations continue into the huge accounting scandal, Bondi has sought to win back investor confidence by saying he would work with creditors if they formed a committee.Part of Bondi’s plan is to swap much of Parmalat’s debts of more than 14 billion euros into equity and he told Friday’s closed-door meeting that different classes of creditor would be treated equally, one of the creditors at the meeting said.”We want a debt-for-equity swap in principle but the devil is in the detail,” the creditor said, adding it was unclear how creditors would rank or what role shareholders would have in the new company.”Bondi did say the right things but he’s been saying the right things all along.We need action,” another creditor said.- Nampa-ReutersAdministrator Enrico Bondi told the representatives of 30 banks and 20 bondholder groups that Parmalat was in talks to sell US dairy assets and it planned to pull out of much of Latin America and Asia to focus on Europe, Canada and Australia.Parmalat’s worldwide workforce would plunge to under 17 000 from 32 000 as the axe was taken to its 30-nation empire – once a point of pride at one of Italy’s most global companies.With many of the people who turned Parmalat into the nation’s eighth biggest industrial group now in jail as investigations continue into the huge accounting scandal, Bondi has sought to win back investor confidence by saying he would work with creditors if they formed a committee.Part of Bondi’s plan is to swap much of Parmalat’s debts of more than 14 billion euros into equity and he told Friday’s closed-door meeting that different classes of creditor would be treated equally, one of the creditors at the meeting said.”We want a debt-for-equity swap in principle but the devil is in the detail,” the creditor said, adding it was unclear how creditors would rank or what role shareholders would have in the new company.”Bondi did say the right things but he’s been saying the right things all along.We need action,” another creditor said.- Nampa-Reuters