More than 50 employees at the Celotex plant in Lisbon are out of work after Bank of America forced the plant into liquidation.
Known locally as Knight-Celotex, the Illinois-based fiberboard manufacturer closed Wednesday and was forced into Chapter 7 liquidation Thursday, the Sun Journal reported. Bank of America agreed to work with the company after CEO Jim Knight resigned, but the bank would not agree to the terms of a new plan and budget developed under an interim CEO.
Once the town’s third-largest employer, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in April after the bank froze its accounts. It shut down briefly last summer, and only about half of its workers returned when the plant reopened about a month later. Celotex also had plants in Sunbury, Pa., Marrero, La., and Danville, Va., and employed a total 250 workers, the paper reported.