Scanwood placed in receivership

About 200 workers at Scanwood Canada Inc. are out of work.

On Monday, the Supreme Court refused the company's plea for more time for protection from its creditors and placed it in receivership.

Co-owner Bo Thorn delivered the latest bad news to a skeleton crew.

"Everybody including myself is, of course, devastated. It's the last thing you want to happen. We thought we could work this out. We still think we can. The court thought otherwise," he told CBC News.

Scanwood made nearly one million chests of drawers every year for IKEA, its only customer. The recession hurt sales, and the business owed nearly $24 million.

The company had been under creditor protection for two months. A bid from a new group of investors fell through and unionized workers refused to make further concessions.

The Nova Scotia government is out nearly $4.6 million after loaning Scanwood money last fall to buy automated equipment to boost productivity.

A spokesman for the Department of Economic and Rural Development and Tourism says the province should recover some of that money when the receiver sells off the equipment and property.