Townsends, the chicken processor whose North Carolina assets were bought by a Ukrainian billionaire earlier this year, is laying off 145 employees at one of its facilities in Siler City.

The company filed a notice Monday with the N.C. Department of Commerce under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.

The WARN notice said the layoffs amount to half the employees at the plant located a 1101 E. Third St. in Siler City. The layoffs will take place between July 1 and July 7, according to the WARN notice.

Townsends employs about 1,200 people in Chatham County and has contracts with hundreds of chicken farmers in Chatham and surrounding counties. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December, and its assets were subsequently auctioned.

The North Carolina operations were acquired for $24.9 million by Omtron, a U.S. shell corporation created by Oleg Bakhmatyuk, a Ukrainian businessman who owns food, transportation, real estate and financial companies.

David Purtle, Omtron's CEO, did not immediately return a call this morning seeking comment.

In March, an adviser to the new owner, George Kikvadze, declined to rule out the need for layoffs.

"Our goal right now is to save as many jobs [as we can] and the way we can do that is by making the business as competitive as possible, " he said.