had been receiving financial advice from Merrill Lynch. Klapmeier indicated that his reason for wanting to take over the project was to speed up development and get the aircraft on the market sooner. Cirrus CEO Brent Wouters indicated that while the company intended to proceed with the SF50 program itself, he would listen to Klapmeier's proposal. On Monday 27 July 2009 Wouters and Cirrus co-founder Dale Klapmeier stated at a press conference that they would find a way to produce the SF50, either at Cirrus or through selling it to Alan Klapmeier. They both said that the key factor was raising enough capital to proceed with the project, complete certification and commence production. On Friday 31 July 2009 Alan Klapmeier announced that his offer to buy the SF50 program had not succeeded, with the key issue having been the program selling price, as well as other points and that the negotiations were at an end. Wouters responded saying further talks were possible, but that Cirrus would continue to develop the SF50 in house. In late August 2009, Cirrus announced that it was laying off 85 employees, mostly office workers. Todd Simmons, vice president of marketing, stated: "These are challenging days for Cirrus, but the decision made is in the best interest in the entire company. Our outlook is still positive. We are making forward progress within the industry." In November 2009, the company laid off an additional 58 workers, or 10% of the remaining payroll. The company indicated that it had failed to achieve some "institutional sales of aircraft" and that meant the lay-offs were expected, emphasizing that it does not indicate deeper problems with the company. As of 11 November 2009, the company had about 550 production workers employed. 2010s In March 2010, Cirrus went to court in an attempt to get an order to prevent former supplier L-3 Communications from telling other Cirrus suppliers that Cirrus was heading into bankruptcy and from discouraging companies from doing business with Cirrus. On 1 April 2010, Cirrus applied for a "voluntary dismissal" of the case against L3, before L3 had filed a response. L3 had been engaged in a lawsuit against Cirrus for non-payment of US$18.7M in development costs for flat panel electronics, with Cirrus countering that L3 did not abide by the contract terms. In June 2010, the company began paying back-rent owed to the city of Grand Forks. Cirrus