That's the Way the Twinkie Crumbles: With Hostess Shutdown, Twinkie the Kid's Salvation May Come From South of the Border

Growing up, I was more of a Little Debbie kind of guy, but this still sucks.

After more than 82 years in business, Hostess Brands, the maker of such iconic confections as Twinkies, Wonder Bread and Donettes, announced on Friday that they were closing their doors forever in the wake of a bankruptcy filing and protracted labor dispute.

The specter of liquidation has loomed large since the bankruptcy case, Hostess's second in recent years, kicked off in January. From the start, the company has warned that labor cuts were its only chance to survive in the marketplace and said the only other possible outcome was a full shutdown of the business. Both Hostess and its largest union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, have long agreed a widespread strike would spell the end of the company.

The shutdown and liquidation of Hostess is expected to leave as many as 18,500 employees at 36 plants throughout the country jobless right before Thanksgiving. Although the Teamsters union had agreed to wage and benefit concessions that was part of the Hostess restructuring, but the Bakers, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Miller's Union balked at any such concessions on their end and refused to return to work by a 5 PM deadline on Thursday. Apparently this wasn't an ill-conceived bluff on the part of the BCTGM, as the leadership was well aware Hostess didn't have the means to weather a prolonged strike by their workers [interestingly, while the BCTGM's website was offline with an "exceeded bandwidth" message throughout the weekend, it returned Sunday night with a slew of 'It's not OUR fault Hostess shut down!' articles- NANESB!]

With liquidation on the horizon, a number of potential bidders for Hostess' assets and trademarks have come forward. According to analysts, potential suitors include private equity firm and current Pabst Blue Ribbon owner C. Dean Metropoulos & Co, Kellog Company [NYSE: K], Kraft Foods spinoff Mondelez International [NASDAQ: MDLZ], Campbell's Soup [NYSE: CPB] and the largest baking company in the world, Mexico's Grupo Bimbo [BMV: BIMBOA].

In September 2011, Grupo Bimbo had completed their acquisition of Illinois-based Sarah Lee Corporation's baking unit and may be looking to further expand their market share in the USA with the purchase of Hostess' assets.