Trustee Named in Reorganization of AME Inc. : Bankruptcy: A veteran film producer will work with the management of the Burbank-based video firm, which still hopes to find a buyer.

AME Inc. still hopes to find a buyer even though the video post-production concern is now reorganizing under the auspices of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

The Burbank-based company, struggling under a heavy debt load, last week sought protection from its creditors by filing under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy laws. Under Chapter 11, a company keeps operating while it works out a plan to pay its bills.

AME has been struggling since 1989, when an investor group bought the company for $108.5 million in a leveraged buyout, meaning most of the cash was borrowed. In its bankruptcy petition, AME listed total assets of $41 million and debts totaling $124 million.

In the first step of reorganization, veteran film producer and consultant John W. Hyde was named AME’s trustee Friday by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kathleen March. Hyde said he will work with AME President Jan A. Yarbrough in managing the company, which employs about 430 people.

Hyde said he is “contacting all of our major customers to reassure them that the company has been stabilized.” Hyde also is a consultant in the separate Chapter 11 proceedings for Orion Pictures Corp. and Fries Entertainment.

AME mainly transfers movie and television films to videotape for distribution to the public via videocassettes, cable TV and foreign broadcast. The company’s revenue totaled $51 million last year.

The bankruptcy filing came after AME spent several weeks searching for a buyer. The company still hopes to be sold.

“What we’re trying to sell is a going concern, not pieces, and that’s what we’re hoping a trustee will accomplish,” said Isaac Pachulski, a lawyer handling AME’s bankruptcy.

AME was started in 1980 by entrepreneur Andrew M. McIntyre, who founded the company with $90,000 and later reaped $22 million when it was sold to the investor group.

“This is a very sad day to see the company I built in bankruptcy,” McIntyre said. “It’s a sad day for the industry, the employees and for me personally.”

McIntyre, in fact, has studied the possibility of repurchasing AME. He declined to say whether he will offer a bid to the bankruptcy court--assuming a sale is among the options approved by the court.

But he said: “If there is an opportunity for me to look at this situation, when the appropriate time comes I would be happy to do that.”

Yarbrough said AME was in negotiations with two prospective buyers when it filed Chapter 11, but that no agreements had been reached. He declined to identify the suitors.

AME’s biggest creditor is First National Bank of Boston, a unit of Bank of Boston Corp. that is owed at least $56 million stemming from the ill-fated buyout, followed by Westinghouse Electric Corp.’s credit unit, which had lent $33.5 million in the deal.

AME said in May that although First National could theoretically try to close and liquidate AME--perhaps with the help of a court-appointed receiver--the bank had no intention of doing so.

But without providing details, Yarbrough said the Chapter 11 filing was necessary “to protect ourselves from receivership.”