Two private equity owners of Toys “R” Us Inc have set up a US$20 million hardship fund for the thousands of former workers left jobless and without severance after the chain was liquidated in June.
KKR & Co and Bain Capital on Tuesday announced the creation of the fund aimed at helping the 30,000 workers affected by the store closures, a move that followed efforts by worker-backed organizations.
The fund was not legally required and the groups call it an “unprecedented” step toward helping families caught up in the store closures and bankruptcies that have roiled the fast-changing retail industry.
Workers are pushing to get an additional US$55 million they believe they are owed and are looking to other firms that had a stake in the toy chain and that they believed played a role in its demise.
“This is an amazing first step, but the goal is to keep the pressure on,” said Ann Marie Reinhart, 59, of Durham, North Carolina, who worked at Toys “R” Us for 29 years, most recently as a store supervisor.
She said she has not been able to find work that pays health insurance since she was laid off this summer.
While the iconic toy retailer was liquidating its hundreds of stores in June, workers were informed they would not get severance. They began protesting outside the New York offices of the retailer’s former owners KKR, Bain and Vornado Realty Trust, firms that loaded the company with debt, helping push it into bankruptcy in the fall of last year.
They then showed up at more than a dozen pension meetings around the country over the past few months, exerting pressure on them to push the equity owners they invest in to do right by workers and act more responsibly.
Since late summer, workers have been pressuring pension funds to in turn push a group of hedge firms that owned the retailer’s secured debt in a bid to get the remaining money they say is owed to them.
These so-called secured creditors, including Solus Alternative Asset Management and Angelo Gordon, were the ones that ultimately pushed for the liquidation as they looked to get returns for their investors.
The groups that organized the Toys “R” Us workers — Organization United for Respect, along with the Private Equity Stakeholder Project and the Center for Popular Democracy — say that the hardship fund is being structured to allow the other firms to contribute, paving the way for Solus, Vornado and others to contribute.
KKR and Bain said the fund was established in response to the “extraordinary set of circumstances” that led to the toy retailer being shuttered.
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
RSS