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Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Co. of Cleveland, Ohio, suspended manufacturing and filed for bankruptcy. CEO John Grabner said Cardinal's revenue is growing and the company remains profitable on an operating level. In an emailed statement to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Grabner described the bankruptcy filing as "largely as a result of an impasse in negotiations with Wells Fargo, our primary lender, regarding working capital financing."
"We have been working with our lenders to secure more flexible working capital arrangements for some time and would certainly have preferred to keep this out of the courts, but this action ultimately provided an appropriate forum to restructure and provide for our future growth," the Plain Dealer quoted Grabner. Days before the filing, Grabner had said imports were hurting American manufacturers involved in wind energy.
When Cardinal Fastener emerges from Chapter 11, the company likely will have a big new investor -- if not a new owner, Crain's Cleveland Business reported.
Cardinal nearly doubled its revenues in four years with wind energy fasteners.
Cardinal was supplying more than a dozen wind turbine builders, including the Danish wind manufacturer Vestas and the Spanish Gamesa SA. Customers also included more than 100 global suppliers involved in fabrication, transportation, construction and maintenance of 8,000 parts needed in wind turbines, Maria Gallucci of SolveClimateNews reported.
Grabner has been a leading advocate for lean manufacturing and spoken at several fastener industry events about Cardinal Fastener's lean efforts. Cardinal Fastener adopted the Toyota Production System lean program in 1998.
Cardinal Fastener gained international attention when Barack Obama toured Cardinal's plant on January 16, 2009, en route to his inauguration. Obama touted Cardinal Fastener's domestic manufacturing of wind energy industry fasteners.
