BRIDGEWATER, N.S. (CP) — A Nova Scotia company that made latex-free surgical gloves has gone out of business.
ECI Medical Technologies of Bridgewater had 50 employees last fall with a payroll of more than $1.4 million, but only had eight employees when it closed its doors last Thursday.
Heather Deighan of the Economic Development Department says her department gave the company a short-term loan last fall worth $250,000, of which $227,000 has been spent.
In 1998, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency gave the company a $450,000 interest-free loan for its $1.6-million expansion, bringing ACOA's contribution to the firm at the time to more than $2.2 million.
Deighan says ECI Medical Technologies, which started in 1995, notified the province early last week that it was seeking bankruptcy protection and broke the news to its employees later in the week.
She says the money from last September's loan was to help in negotiations with a European company to further ECI's expansion into that market.
ECI Medical Technologies relied heavily on exports, which represented more than 95 per cent of sales.
The company first opened with more than $4.5 million in federal and provincial incentives.
ECI Medical Technologies billed itself in 1998 as one of the world's top manufacturers of non-latex gloves.
The plant was built to produce 30 million pairs of synthetic surgical gloves a year. Ten years ago, it was making two million pairs annually.
Company president Keith Boulter did not respond to a request for an interview.
