USA: Pittsburgh Brewery creditors get another week to respond to settlement offers

Pittsburgh Brewing Co. creditors have an extra week to respond to settlement offers from an equity fund manager who wants to buy the bankrupt business, The Associated Press reported April 5.

The creditors were supposed to respond by Thursday but the judge overseeing the case pushed back the deadline after potential buyer John Milne of Westport, Conn. told the court he was still negotiating with the creditors.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge M. Bruce McCullough will hold a hearing April 12 at which he must approve the settlements and a reorganization plan for the brewery. If that happens, creditors must vote on the plan by April 27.

The creditors were owed about $26 million dollars when the brewery filed Chapter 11 in December 2005. Milne has proposed paying them $3.98 million in his bid to keep it operating.

Unions for 160 brewery workers have already approved a contract with a 15-percent wage cut and benefit concessions. The 146-year-old brewery makes Iron City, I.C. Light and Augustiner beers.