The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Purdue workers face uncertainty
STAMFORD — Bankrupt OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s new reorganization plan runs about 100 pages. But it leaves a key question unanswered: What will happen to the firm’s approximately 500 employees, including the nearly 200 based at its Stamford headquarters, after its dissolution and the transfer of its assets into a new company?
In response to an inquiry from Hearst Connecticut Media, Purdue said this week in a statement that “we have no current plans for any reductions in force.” The company declined to comment in response to a follow-up inquiry about whether its statement meant that current employees, including CEO Craig Landau and other senior-level executives, would be allowed to work at the new company if they were interested in doing so.
State attorneys general are also staying tight-lipped about the staffing of the new company.
“Without listing specific individuals, I firmly believe that those responsible for this crisis should not continue to work in this industry,” said Connecticut Attorney General William Tong.
Tong is one of 24 state attorneys general who have not agreed to settle their states’ lawsuits against Purdue because they deem the company’s settlement offer insufficient.
What is clear is that the break-up of Purdue is on the horizon. Its reorganization plan calls for its dissolution and the transfer of all of its assets into a new company after emerging from bankruptcy.
Sackler family members who own Purdue would relinquish control and have no involvement in the new company.
The successor company would be indirectly owned by two trusts, which would help disburse settlement funds that the company values at a total of more than $10 billion. The settlement money would resolve the hundreds of thousands of claims against the company and fund programs aimed at tackling the opioid epidemic.
Despite filing for bankruptcy in September 2019 to resolve the lawsuits, Purdue and the Sacklers have denied the complaints’ allegations that the company fueled the opioid crisis with deceptive OxyContin marketing.
As the company has grappled with the torrent of litigation, its headcount has dropped dramatically in recent years. It cut its workforce by a total of more than 1,000 in 2017 and 2018. Several hundred employees were laid off when it disbanded its sales force following its February 2018 decision to stop marketing OxyContin and other opioids to medical professionals.
Since filing for bankruptcy, the company has struggled to keep its remaining staff. Citing an annualized “voluntary” turnover rate of 13 percent from the start of its bankruptcy through August 2020, Purdue said in court filings last year that it needed to award employee bonuses to respond to a “real and serious attrition problem.”
Last October, the judge overseeing Purdue’s bankruptcy approved bonuses for lower-level employees that could total up to nearly $36 million. Those payments are being distributed among more than 600 people.
The following month, Judge Robert Drain signed off on a performance bonus of nearly $3 million for Landau, although that amount was $593,000 less than the amount originally proposed by Purdue.
Questions about HQ
Purdue’s re-organization plan also leaves unclear the new company’s headquarters location.
On Jan. 1, Purdue started a new threeyear lease for about 104,000 square feet at 201 Tresser Blvd., in downtown Stamford. It ranked as the second-largest office-leasing transaction in Fairfield County in 2020.
The current lease involves less space than Purdue previously used at 201 Tresser, although the company has declined to specify its previous square footage. It has been based since 2000 at 201 Tresser, which is also known as One Stamford Forum.
In response to Hearst Connecticut Media’s inquiry, Purdue officials declined to say whether the lease would also apply to the successor company.
The Sacklers represent the “beneficial owners” of the approximately 505,000square-foot building at 201 Tresser, according to bankruptcy court records.
A message left for a spokesperson for the Sacklers was not immediately returned.
Other tenants at 201 Tresser include Charter Communications — the provider of Spectrum-branded cable, internet and phone services — which is headquartered in the adjacent building at 400 Atlantic St. Charter plans to open later this year its new headquarters a few blocks away at 406 Washington Blvd.
During the past few years, 201 Tresser has periodically attracted protesters. On March 12, activist and former Stamford art gallery owner Fernando Luis Alvarez led a protest outside the building calling for the ouster of the Food & Drug Administration’s interim commissioner, Janet Woodcock.
Alvarez gained international attention in June 2018 after he was arrested for his role in a protest that involved the installation of an 800-pound spoon in front of 201 Tresser.
In a move apparently aimed at reducing its offices’ visibility, Purdue in 2019 removed all of its exterior signs at 201 Tresser.