The owner of Hawaii’s largest traffic control and safety service provider, Safety Systems Hawaii, filed for bankruptcy last week in a move expected to result in new ownership for the nearly 40-year-old Honolulu firm.

Traffic Control and Safety Corp., a California company that owns Safety Systems Hawaii and five California businesses in the same industry, filed for Chapter 11 on April 20 in Delaware.

The bankruptcy filing contemplates selling Traffic Control and its subsidiaries to its largest creditor, or a higher bidder, as a way to exit Chapter 11 quickly while keeping subsidiaries operating.

If successful, the plan would give Safety Systems Hawaii its second owner in a little more than five years.

Safety Systems Hawaii was formed in 1973 to provide traffic control assistance to the state Department of Transportation. The company helps direct traffic for construction, accidents and other events. It also deals in equipment from traffic cones and signs to jackhammers and steel road plates.

About five years ago the company was acquired by Traffic Control as part of a plan by Newport Beach, Calif.-based investment firm Marwit Capital to assemble a collection of traffic control and safety companies.

But a decline in public and private construction proj­ects strained Traffic Control’s finances, which included hefty debt used to acquire its subsidiaries, the filing said.

Traffic Control’s estimated debt is between $50 million and $100 million. Estimated assets are between $10 million and $50 million.

The company said it expects that substantially all of its 430 employees, including 133 at Safety Systems Hawaii, will be offered jobs through the bankruptcy reorganization and planned sale.