Feb 27, 2019

The planned cuts come after the Robert Allen Duralee Group filed for bankruptcy earlier this month and put itself up for sale. Updated February 27, 2019 6:00 AM A high-end fabric and home-furnishings company in Hauppauge that is for sale plans to lay off a total of 83 workers, according to a state regulatory notice. The layoff announcements comes after the Robert Allen Duralee Group Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month. The company plans to lay off 78 workers at its Hauppauge location and five in Syosset. It could not be determined how many employees the sites employ because the company didn’t return telephone calls seeking comment. When it filed for bankruptcy, the company said that “multiple parties” have expressed interest in buying it, according to trade newspaper Fabrics & Furnishings International. And the company said it has hired an investment firm to help find a buyer. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN, notice cites the possible sale of the company and the bankruptcy filing as the reasons for the layoffs. The state notice lists the layoff dates as the week of April 22 and notes a “possible sale” of the company during that time. The layoffs also come almost two years after the company was created by merging fabric and furnishing designer Robert Allen Group Inc. and Duralee Fabrics Ltd., according to the publication The Deal. Each company had financial difficulties before the merger, the publication said. Duralee was founded in 1952 in Manhattan’s Garment District. It moved to Long Island in the 1960s. The Robert Allen Group was owned by private equity firm Altamont Capital Partners, which is based in Palo Alto, California. Those companies are now separate divisions of Robert Allen Duralee Group, which is based in Hauppauge. Under New York’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, private-sector companies with at least 50 full-time employees must file a 90-day notice of a mass layoff or closing. Get the Biz Briefing newsletter! The latest LI business news in your inbox Monday through Friday.