Glass recycling plant in receivership

By Bruce Hain Innisfil Journal Jan 27, 2011
INNISFIL — An Innisfil Heights company once thought to be symbolic of the town’s emerging industrial growth strategy is now in the hands of a court-appointed receiver.
Poraver North America Ltd. opened a multi-million dollar plant in June 2007 in the Doral Business Park near Hwy. 400. The facility was built to produce environmentally friendly aggregate made from recycled glass.
At the time, then CEO George Morandin said the plant would be capable of producing up to 80,000 tonnes a year of mixed, broken or coloured glass recovered from landfill sites. An investment of close to $50 million was made to construct the plant.
However, anticipated orders for the material produced by Poraver, spheres with applications as masonry adhesives, pre-cast concrete and ceiling tiles fell well short of expectations.
Creditors were sent a notice by receiver PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. (PwC) in November 2010 that Poraver was filing a Notice of Intention to make a Proposal (NOI) under a section of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act of Canada. PwC has been working with Poraver officials on a “sales process in which the company is seeking a party interested in purchasing the company and/or its assets.
A list of creditors was published by PwC including a number of local firms such as Barrie Welding and Machine ($16,218), Innisfil Hydro Distribution Systems ($26,124), Moore Packaging Corp. ($14,048), the Town of Innisfil ($37,843), Ultimate Staffing Solutions ($25,871) and Western Mechanical Millwright Services ($58,205).
The largest creditor is TD Capital to the tune of $36,542,694.
Creditors were asked to file any claims by Jan. 14, 2011.
As of Dec. 15, 2010 PwC filed a report detailing Poraver’s actual cash flows from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15, 2010 and the firm’s revised cash flow forecast to Feb. 6, 2011. Poraver also asked for an extension of time to file a proposal to Feb