Changing World Technologies has known for awhile now that 2009 could be its make-or-break year. Founded more than a decade ago, the biofuels developer said in SEC filings that it raised $9.5 million last year — an amount CWT expected to fund its operations through the end of last month.
The next step was supposed to be an initial public offering, which CWT said would enable it to fund operations through the rest of 2009. The company’s last filing with the SEC, which noted net losses of $18.8 million for the first nine months of 2008 and an accumulated deficit of $117.8 million, indicated CWT would face a massive struggle to stay afloat without raising money in the public markets.
Well, as we reported earlier this month, the IPO plan is off. And today, according to local media from Carthage, Miss. Mo., home of CWT’s sole production facility, the company asked its main supplier, Butterball, to stop shipping feedstock.
Note, I’m not talking about cellulose or corn. CWT takes unwanted (and otherwise wasted) turkey guts, feathers and other poultry remains off Butterball’s hands and uses them to make fuel, fertilizer and specialty products in Carthage Industrial Bottoms. Or rather, it did — until today.
According to Carthage Press, workers at the plant (run by CWT subsidiary Renewable Environmental Solutions) were asked to attend a “rapid response” meeting, and they expected cutbacks, at best. The Press quotes Jasen Jones, director of the Joplin Workforce Investment Board office:
“We don’t have any official information from the company, just that there is some type of reduction taking place and that came from an employee who called us,” said Jones. “There is some type of reduction going on, but we don’t know if it is a closing or just a reduction of workforce.”

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