“GT Advanced Technologies Inc. is lining up $95 million worth of loans to rehabilitate a business left in disarray by a year-long effort to become a supplier to technology giant Apple Inc.,” Peg Brickley reports for Dow Jones Business News.
“Recovery in bankruptcy means returning to its base as a manufacturer of equipment such as the furnaces that produce sapphire, an effort that GT feels will take about $100 million in new loans,” Brickley reports. “The proposed bankruptcy financing still must be completed and approved by the court. It calls for GT to exit Chapter 11 protection early next year.”
“Enticed by the chance to link up with the smartphone giant, the New Hampshire company spent heavily to transform itself from a manufacturer of industrial equipment to a manufacturer of sapphire screen material for Apple,” Brickley reports. “An effort to produce the scratch- and shatter-resistant material at a volume never before attempted failed to pan out, for reasons that were a matter of dispute between GT and Apple. They settled their differences early in the bankruptcy, under an arrangement that gives GT time to sell furnaces to pay off a debt to Apple.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Good luck, GT Advanced – in moving furnaces to pay back the millions you owe Apple.
Related articles:
GT Advanced CEO sold 9,000 shares the day before Apple’s iPhone 6/Plus event – October 7, 2014
GT Advanced COO sold $2 million in stock after sapphire deal with Apple began to sour – October 14, 2014
GT Advanced wants bankruptcy judge to approve millions in executive bonuses – December 31, 2014
Apple, GT Advanced and the ‘boule graveyard’ – November 20, 2014
Lack of experience, mismanagement doomed GT Advanced’s sapphire adventure – November 19, 2014
Court unseals GT Advanced documents: Apple says it ‘bent over backwards’ to help sapphire supplier – November 7, 2014
GT Advanced blames ‘oppressive and burdensome’ Apple terms in quest to ax sapphire production – October 10, 2014
Anyone stupid enough to loan these crooks money are damn fools.
They are a bunch of crooks and should be in jail instead of living large on their ill-gotten gains from Apple and shareholders.
They’ve shown they build equipment that even they can’t operate to successfully make the products industry requires. Why would anyone buy the equipment from them? Seems like the main skills of the management team center around borrowing money.
How much of $95 millions are performance bonuses for the executive teams?
the word “safire” comes from “Safirus,” Icarus’s younger brother who also strapped on wings, flew too close to the sun, and crashed into the ocean. kinda ironic.