Harry & David's Bankruptcy Rocks Medford, Oregon

Harry & David, whose orchards have been a Medford, OR, fixture for more than a century, filed for bankruptcy protection on Mar 28, 2011 after failing to make interest payments on about $200 million of debt. Peter Buckley, a Democratic state representative whose district includes the Medford area, places blame for the bankruptcy squarely at the feet of Wasserstein & Co, a buyout firm which controlled Harry & David. The buyout firm, founded by the late Bruce Wasserstein, bought Harry & David in 2004 from Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical, then Japan's third-largest drugmaker, for about $230 million. Now the fate of Harry & David is in the hands of Kay Hong, a managing director at Alvarez & Marsal, a corporate restructuring company in New York.