KV Pharmaceutical Co. has hired a firm that specializes in restructurings and bankruptcies.
The company has retained Morris Anderson & Associates Ltd., a Chicago-based financial and management consulting firm with an office in St. Louis, to advise KV on "restructuring its financial operations and cash management efforts,” KV said in a filing Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Brentwood, Mo.-based company’s myriad problems with product recalls, federal investigations and subsequent lawsuits have hit its finances and work force.
To raise money, KV is trying to sell off certain assets, including its prenatal vitamin and hematinic product lines, with the help of Milwaukee-based Robert W. Baird & Co. Inc., which has a St. Louis office.
KV also hired Minneapolis-based Itasca Partners to help it sell one of its subsidiaries, Particle Dynamics Inc. (PDI), which makes drugs and capsules used in the pharmaceutical, nutritional, food and personal care markets, according to Friday’s filing.
PDI was damaged during an accidental fire last month, delaying efforts to sell it, KV said.
KV also said it laid off another 300 workers this month, bringing its total number of layoffs this year to 1,000, or more than half its work force.
The company now has 700 workers left, down from 1,700 on Dec. 31, 2008, according to the filing.
KV’s auditor, KPMG, plans to raise substantial doubt about KV’s ability to continue as a going concern, as KV struggles with its liquidity and financial losses.
KV has been plagued with problems over the past year, including alleged management misconduct, suspended drug shipments, a production stoppage, recalls of oversized painkiller tablets and probes by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri.
“If the company is required to pay fines or penalties, the amount could be material,” KV said in Friday’s filing. “Any governmental enforcement action could require the company to operate under significant restrictions, place substantial burdens on management, hinder the company’s ability to attract and retain qualified employees and/or cause the company to incur significant costs. If the company does not prevail in one or more pending lawsuits, the company may be required to pay a significant amount of monetary damages.”
No comments:
Post a Comment