Business Failures

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In the retail business, "debt" differs from either "dead" or "death" only in the sound of the final consonant.

Furniture is usually something that people can put off buying. Much of it is bought on credit, as are many other big-ticket items (cars, appliances). Facing the wrong market (heavily Michigan, which has been "Michigrim" for retailers), a likely credit crunch due to the inverted market curve, and a loss of confidence of the vulture capitalists who bought Art Van... maybe this isn't so surprising as it seemed.

The stock market is down 10.1% from the start of the year, and 12.25% off the all-time high at the moment at which I write this. The wealth effect that Donald Trump has ridden to date may be vanishing, and with that his sole remaining source of credibility among voters.

So --

1. a company heavily in debt
2. a company overexposed in a bad regional market (Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio -- yuck!) as a retailer
3. a company whose sales depend upon the perception of individual prosperity
4. an inverted yield curve that practically ensures a credit crunch
5. an inverted yield curve that makes quick corporate borrowing difficult

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J C PENNEY

The venerable J C Penney  corporation, once the first place to which many of us went to get clothes, has declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

New York (CNN Business)JCPenney filed for bankruptcy on Friday, the latest retail giant to see its downfall hastened by the coronavirus crisis. The pandemic was the final blow to a 118-year-old company struggling to overcome a decade of bad decisions, executive instability and damaging market trends.


The company said it has an agreement with most of its lenders on the turnaround plan that will allow it to stay in business as a more financially healthy company, but will include closing an as yet unannounced number of its 846 stores. As part of the turnaround process JCPenney arranged to borrow an additional $450 million from those lenders to pay for operations during the reorganization.

The company blamed the Covid-19 pandemic for the need to file bankruptcy.
"Until this pandemic struck, we had made significant progress rebuilding our company under our Plan for Renewal strategy -- and our efforts had already begun to pay off," said CEO Jill Soltau. "Implementing this financial restructuring plan through a court-supervised process is the best path to ensure that JCPenney will build on its over 100-year history to serve our customers for decades to come."

How the mighty have fallen


JCPenney's history began in 1902 with its first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming. It grew to become one of the major national retailers, an anchor of many suburban shopping malls along with rivals like Sears and Macy's, (M) which find themselves facing their own struggles today. JCPenney reached its peak number of stores in 1973, when it operated just over 2,000 locations nationwide.



Today, JCPenney has 85,000 employees, making the company among the largest US retailers to file for bankruptcy in recent years. It has more US stores than other troubled companies such as Sears, Toys "R" Us or Sports Authority did when they filed.

JCPenney has been struggling under a mountain of debt and red ink for a decade. But the last 10 years have been filled with one mistake after another, as a revolving door in executive leadership brought it four different CEOs. Radical changes meant to revive the company — including ending coupons and clearance sales in an attempt to capture more upscale shoppers, and introducing household appliances — proved to be spectacular failures that were quickly undone.



But the company was also struggling with the decline in the entire department store sector. More consumers are shopping online rather than in person, and JCPenney was also battered by the growth of big box discounters such as  Walmart (WMT), Target (TGT) and Costco (COST), which provide shoppers with lower prices and a selection of items not found in department stores, such as groceries.

JCPenney's most recent profitable year was 2010, and its net losses have totaled $4.5 billion since then.



Since the summer of 2011 it has reported net profits in only five quarters, all of them in the holiday shopping season -- it has been unable to make money without that boost in sales. Since the start of 2011, JCPenney has closed more than 20% of its stores while cutting more than 40% of its staff.



Despite the history of mistakes and industry trends moving against it, there had been recent signs of hope at JCPenney before this crisis.



In November, as the holiday shopping season was just about to start, its losses shrank in the third quarter, and it raised its profit forecast, even as its sales continued to fall.

"We made significant progress on our efforts to return JCPenney to sustainable, profitable growth," Soltau said in a statement at that time.


But that optimism proved short-lived, as net income plunged 64% in its fourth quarter, which included the holiday shopping season, and the company announced another round of store closings.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/15/business/...index.html

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I haven't been keeping up here. Some others from May (CNN)

Gold's Gym

Quote:Gold's Gym said in its May 5 fling that the virus has affected it "deeply and in many ways," which includes the temporary closures of many of its 700 global gyms. Filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection will help it "emerge stronger and ready to grow," the statement continued.
The 55-year-old company intends to exit bankruptcy by August and said it is "absolutely not going anywhere." Gold's did shutter 30 locations in April, but it doesn't intend to permanently close any more gyms.

Gyms were especially vulnerable to the COVID-19 outbreak. Just think of all the heavy breathing. Working out is good for general health (just avoid the steroids, of course). People are pushing themselves in a gym, huffing and puffing, and anyone contagious with a respiratory ailment  really gets to spread it around. But most businesses are anything but cash-rich  these days. Cash reserves? Not in style except for banks, insurance companies, and brokerage firms. 
OK, if you have ever played the game Monopoly ™, you have learned that  investments pay off, and having a tidy reserve  won't help you if you land on Boardwalk or Park Place with a hotel on it. When it comes to bankruptcy, going bankrupt and insolvent by $50K and $5 billion has the same effect on you. It's not in the same league as choosing to be hanged for a lamb or a sheep, so you might as well steal a sheep. 


Hertz

Quote:Car rental giant Hertz  filed for bankruptcy on May 22. The company also rents cars under the brands Dollar, Thrifty and Firefly.

The company has been in business since 1918, when it set up shop with a dozen Ford Model Ts. Hertz has survived the Great Depression, World War II's near-total halt of US auto production and numerous oil price shocks.By declaring bankruptcy, the rental car company says it intends to stay in business while restructuring its debts so it can emerge financially healthier.

"The impact of Covid-19 on travel demand was sudden and dramatic, causing an abrupt decline in the company's revenue and future bookings," the company said in a statement, noting that "uncertainty remains as to when revenue will return and when the used-car market will fully re-open for sales, which necessitated today's action."

Hertz was criticized for paying out millions of dollars in bonuses to its executives just before its bankruptcy -- and a month after it started laying off thousands of employees.

It paid a total of $16.2 million to 340 executives on May 19 as part of a plan to keep them in place while the company attempts to reorganize, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Service companies with huge capital costs are vulnerable to any shock. The rental car business depends heavily upon air travel.  If air travel plummets (and anyone taking any form of mass transportation during the Plague of 2020 is a fool these days), then so does the business in real-estate rentals. So suppose that you are in Philadelphia and most conduct business in Santa Rosa, California. You fly to San Francisco International Airport (SFO) from Philly, rent a car at SFO, and take about a 60-mile drive to Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa does not have a good airport, the last that I knew, and even if it did, you would rent a car in Santa Rosa. People are relying more upon teleconferences for business.
Question: will people keep doing teleconferences once the plague is over? If so, then not only the airline industry is reduced to practically the tourist trade that isn't so lucrative as business travel. 
COVID-19 is a legitimate Crisis Era event. Know well: American capitalism is remarkably inept at scaling back operations. We may be in big trouble until the mom-and-pop outfits take over in the wake of the economic equivalent of the K-T boundary in paleontology. 
If you don't know what the K-T boundary is, that boundary delineates the great meteor strike that killed off practically all land and air creatures bigger than house cats and some terrier dogs. The dinosaurs did not quite go extinct; the only surviving dinosaurs are birds. 
Humanity would probably not survive  such a meteor strike. 
   J.Crew Group

Quote:It's a distinction no one wants: J. Crew Group became first national US retailer to file for bankruptcy protection since the coronavirus pandemic forced a wave of store closures. It filed on May 4.
The company, which owns the preppy J.Crew and Madewell brands, expects to stay in business and emerge from bankruptcy as a profitable company. And Madewell, the fast-growing denim brand that had been slated for an IPO, will remain part of the business.

J.Crew Group was saddled by a heavy debt load since its 2011 purchase from private equity firms TPG Capital and Leonard Green & Partners in a $3 billion deal.

It had grown rapidly in the nine years since the transaction was completed, nearly doubling the number of stores. But it has also accumulated far more debt. It had $50 million of long-term debt on its books in 2010, before the deal was announced -- and as of February of this year that number had ballooned to $1.7 billion.
The company operates nearly 500 stores including J.Crew's factory outlets.

As I suggested elsewhere it may not be coincidence that in the retail business, the words debt, death, and dead end in similar phonemes. Obviously "dead" and "death" are etymologically related and otherwise sound identical; debt is related as a cause., if not in etymology.  I see a pattern likely to emerge in the 1T: that businesses will sacrifice the prospect of growth and expansion so that they can have cash reserves in the event of a calamity such as "COVID-25"... should such bedevil us five years from now. 
If mom-and-pop businesses flourished in the last 1T, then maybe they will be the norm in the next 1T. Progressive taxes and the absence of a Soviet-style nomenklatura  will be good for keeping small scale and limited geographic scope as a norm... once the economy gets through the economic equivalent of the K-T boundary.
Neiman Marcus

Quote:Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus, which filed for bankruptcy on May 7, said the restructuring agreement with creditors will allow it to "substantially reduce debt and position the company for long-term growth."

The company's history goes back 113 years to its first store in Dallas, which is still its home base. The company also operates the Bergdorf Goodman and Last Call chains.

Neiman had 69 stores among the three brands as of last year. In March, just days before the pandemic prompted mass store closings, the company announced plans to permanently close a "majority" of its 22 Last Call outlet stores.
ITS fate was very possibly sealed in 2013 when Ares Management and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board paid $6 billion in a leveraged buyout, taking the company private.

"The big issue with Neiman is that the [private equity companies] paid too much and layered on too much debt," Steve Dennis, a retail consultant and former Neiman executive, previously told CNN Business.

On the first page of this thread I suggested that the downfall of any luxury brand would indicate deep trouble for America as a whole, not so much because the non-rich would miss nothing (unless as employees), but instead because such indicates that their clientele isn't spending the money as it did. The problem with Neiman-Marcus is that someone paid too much for the business. 
Remember the three words that I associate with excessive leveraging: debt, death, and dead. They apply as much to luxury retailers as they do to the more proletarian Sears and JC Penney, and they tend to come together at the first sign of a financial panic..
 Tuesday Morning

Quote:Discount home goods retailer Tuesday Morning (TUES) blamed the virus for prolonged store closures that caused an "insurmountable financial hurdle."

CEO Steve Becker said the business was thriving before the pandemic. But the resulting temporary store closures and employee furloughs had "severe consequences on our business."

"The complete halt of store operations for two months put the company in a financial position that can be effectively addressed only through a reorganization in Chapter 11," he said in a statement.

The Dallas-based chain, which filed on May 27, said it will permanently close approximately 230 of its nearly 700 US stores.
--CNN Business' Chris Isidore and Nathaniel Meyersohn contributed to this report.

Discount retailing may be unsustainable in the wake of the end of scarcity. Over-runs, factory returns, and seasonal junk may be harder to sell. Plenty of sellers and few buyers? 
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/business/...index.html

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As far as the oil and gas industry goes, few are predicting a recovery soon.

Energy producers got themselves into this mess back in 2010 through 2014 when they borrowed money and bid against each other to buy up prospective shale reserves around the country suitable for fracking, explained Beckham, the partner in Haynes and Boone's restructuring practice.

When prices were high, oil and gas companies made money and transformed the United States from a net oil importer to an exporter. But Saudi Arabia didn’t like losing market share and fought back by opening its spigots, creating excess supply and causing oil prices to plummet from above $100 a barrel in the summer of 2014 to half that price the following year. Dozens of heavily indebted American companies were forced to file for bankruptcy protection.


Instead of capping their wells and going out of business, U.S. producers adjusted to the new costs, said Buddy Clark, a partner with Haynes and Boone’s energy transaction group. "Technology rose to the occasion. The industry came up with significant cost-cutting innovations and production continued at $55 a barrel."

With the onset of the pandemic, however, oil prices plunged again, dipping briefly below $20 a barrel in April, before recovering to just under $40 a barrel in June.

Clark said it costs U.S. producers anywhere from $12 to $35 a barrel to get the oil out of the ground depending on where they are operating. That’s called the “lifting cost.” On top of that, they have the cost of servicing their debt. As long as oil prices are higher than the lifting cost, companies have an incentive to keep producing and to renegotiate their debt.

https://oklahoman.com/article/5665651/wi...-recession

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LONDON (AP) — Shares in the company that owns the Regal, Cineworld and Picturehouse movie theaters fell as much as 58% after it said it will temporarily close the venues because delays to the latest James Bond film left it with few blockbusters to attract customers during the pandemic.

Cineworld Group Plc said Monday that 536 Regal cinemas in the U.S. and 127 Cineworld and Picturehouse venues in the U.K. would close on Thursday. Some 45,000 employees are affected.

The company has high debts and is, like the wider industry, struggling with the effects of the pandemic. Just last week groups representing theater owners, movie studios and directors issued a plea to U.S. lawmakers to provide relief to ailing movie theaters. The letter, signed by the likes of Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Patty Jenkins, Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese, said that if the status quo continues, nearly 70% of small to mid-size movie theaters could be forced to close permanently.

Efforts to slow the spread of the virus resulted in closure of most cinemas for nearly six months. Many started tentatively reopening in late August, anticipating the release of money-making blockbusters, like Nolan’s “Tenet,” the Bond pic “No Time to Die” and Marvel’s “Black Widow.”

IMPACT ON THE ECONOMY:
– Long-term jobless caught in a squeeze that imperils recovery
– Pandemic pushes start of holiday shopping earlier than ever
– Wall Street claws back more of its losses on stimulus hopes

But ticket sales for Warner Bros.’ “Tenet,” the first major film out of the gates, were not as strong in the U.S. as hoped, likely a combination of audience reluctance to return to theaters and the effects of markets like New York remaining closed. While some analysts stress that films need to play the “long game” at the box office in this current environment, studios responded by delaying most other major films that had been set for the fall and winter.

Some merely moved back 2020 openings as late as possible, like “Death on the Nile” (Dec. 18) and “Wonder Woman 1984,” which is now set for Christmas.

But others abandoned the year entirely, including Marvel’s “Black Widow,” Spielberg’s “West Side Story” and Universal’s “Candyman,” all of which were pushed to 2021 in recent weeks.

Although there are a handful of major films still set for 2020, like Pixar’s “Soul” and Warner Bros.′ “Dune,” Friday’s announcement that “No Time To Die” was being delayed to 2021 came as a final blow.

Without these releases, Cineworld said it can’t give customers “the breadth of strong commercial films necessary for them to consider coming back to theaters against the backdrop of COVID-19.”

https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbrea...f1cab8cbce

British cinema theater chains, but could be a portent "across the pond".

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NEW YORK (AP) — J.C. Penney believes it will emerge from bankruptcy protection before Christmas under a new ownership agreement that would save tens of thousands of jobs.

The beleaguered, century-old retailer said Wednesday that it has filed a draft asset purchase agreement with the two biggest mall owners in the U.S. Substantially all of J.C. Penney’s retail and operating assets will be acquired by Brookfield Asset Management Inc. and Simon Property Group through a combination of cash and new term loan debt.

Details of the deal that will save roughly 70,000 jobs and avert a total liquidation first emerged last month during a bankruptcy hearing.


J.C. Penney, which even before the pandemic had struggled to compete with the likes of Amazon.com, Target and Walmart, became one of the largest retailers to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this year amid a wave of store closures forced by the spread of COVID-19 infections in the U.S.

More than two dozen retailers have filed for bankruptcy protection since the pandemic closed stores, restaurants, gyms and other businesses across the country.

The Plano, Texas, retailer will shed nearly a third of its stores in the next two years as it restructures, leaving just 600 locations open.


Trademark and Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Today is Black Friday... and some retailers may sink or swim according to what happens today.

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21 Club


The 21 Club, often simply 21, was an American traditional cuisine restaurant and former prohibition-era speakeasy, located at 21 West 52nd Street in New York City.[1] The establishment announced that it would not be reopening on December 14, 2020.



The Bar Room includes a restaurant, a lounge and, as the name implies, a bar. The walls and ceiling of the Bar Room are covered with antique toys and sports memorabilia donated by famous patrons.[2] Perhaps the best known feature of 21 is the line of painted cast iron lawn jockey statues which adorns the balcony above the entrance. In the 1930s, some of the affluent customers of the bar began to show their appreciation by presenting 21 with jockeys painted to represent the racing colors of the stables they owned. There are 33 jockeys on the exterior of the building, and 2 more inside the doors.[2][3]

The first version of the club opened in Greenwich Village in 1922, run by cousins Jack Kriendler and Charlie Berns. It was originally a small speakeasy known as the Red Head. In 1925 the location was moved to a basement on Washington Place and its name was changed to Frontón. The following year it moved uptown to 42 West 49th Street, changed its name to the Puncheon Club, and became much more exclusive.[4] In late 1929, to make way for the construction of Rockefeller Center, the club moved to its current location and changed its name to "Jack and Charlie's 21".
Although raided by police on many occasions during Prohibition, the premises staff had methods to protect the club from the authorities. As soon as a raid began, a system of levers was used to tip the shelves of the bar, sweeping the liquor bottles through a chute and into the city's sewers.[5] The bar also included a secret wine cellar, which was accessed through a hidden door in a brick wall which opened into the basement of the building next door (number 19). Though still used as a wine cellar today, part of the vault has been remodeled to allow a party of up to 20 guests to dine in private. The club also stored the private wine collections of John F. Kennedy; Richard Nixon; Gerald Ford; Joan Crawford; Elizabeth Taylor; Hugh Carey; Ernest Hemingway; the Nordstrom sisters; Frank Sinatra; Al Jolson; Gloria Vanderbilt; Sophia Loren; Mae West; Aristotle Onassis; Gene Kelly; Gloria Swanson; Judy Garland; Sammy Davis, Jr.; and Marilyn Monroe.The bar is mentioned several times in David Niven's memoirs - Bring on the Empty Horses - he was given a job by J+C selling liquor following the end of prohibition, and went there with director J Huston on their return from the war.
At Christmas time, the regular clientele received silk scarves decorated with a motif of the club insignia. Each scarf is numbered and has the Jockey logo and also features the railings associated with the building. Some of the most unusual and desirable were designed by Ray Strauss, founder of Symphony Scarves, in the 1950s and '60s. A number of these can be seen in a 1989 book by Andrew Baseman, The Scarf. Siggie Nordstrom had a collection of several dozen of these she'd received through the years.

The prestigious International Debutante Ball, which has presented many daughters and granddaughters of U.S. presidents to high society at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, has hosted its pre-ball parties at 21 Club.[6]

In 1985, the Kriendler and Berns families sold their interests in the restaurant to General Felt Industries, a holding company headed by Marshall S. Cogan and Stephen Swid.[7][8] Ten years later, Cogan and Swid sold the restaurant to Orient-Express Hotels.[9] In 1995 it became part of Orient-Express Hotels Ltd. which in 2014 changed its name to Belmond Ltd.

On January 24, 2009, it ended its long-standing policy of requiring men to wear neckties at dinner. Wearing a jacket, however, is still required,[10] and loaner jackets by Michael Kors and Ralph Lauren are available for men to borrow if they have neglected to bring one.[11]
In summer of 2015 all 37 jockeys were removed for a three-month artist restoration and returned on October 21, 2015, for a ribbon cutting.[12]
On December 11, 2020, it was reported the restaurant had ceased operations indefinitely and employees would be terminated on March 2021. The shutdown was due to uncertainty regarding the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City.[13]

Since 2003, the restaurant has been a recipient of the Wine Spectator Grand Award.[14]
In 2017, Zagat gave it a food rating of 4.3 out of 5.

https://www.21club.com/

Note: back in 2008 I started a thread to this effect, as large entities started to fail and fall. The entities could include:

1. Giant corporations of any kind. These could be corporations that were once gigantic and have been whittled away with sales of divisions as well as such companies that declare bankruptcies
2. Forced mergers in which a larger entity takes over a smaller, troubled one. 
3. Business failures due to gross malfeasance of top management, such as Enrob Corporation or Peanut Corporation of America.
4. Large-scale scams that get shut down. -- let us say some fraudster cheating Americans from abroad and being busted in the country of is operation. 
5. High-profile non-profit organizations that shut down or file for bankruptcy
6. Significant state, county, or city governments. 
7. Renowned, even if small, entities known for serving super-rich clientele

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"He never will be missed; he truly won't be missed".

Alex Jones of InfoWars.

Quote:An empire built on conjecture, conspiracy and a series of fake homeopathic cures for various ailments stands to be sued into oblivion after a Friday ruling by the Supreme Court of Texas.

Without comment, the Lone Star State’s highest civil court found that America’s foremost conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, and his flagship media outlet, InfoWars, are subject to liability in four separate defamation lawsuits filed over the past two-plus years. Those lawsuits were filed by parents of children who were killed during the Sandy Hook massacre and by a man Jones and his network falsely identified as the perpetrator of the Parkland massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Jones took a turn toward conspiracy following Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The bombastic host accused the government of orchestrating the grisly incident—naturally, with no evidence—and never looked back.

Immediately after the 2012 shooting that left 20 children and six teachers dead in Newtown, Connecticut, Jones used his by-then vast platform to spread the idea that the murders were part of a “false flag” operation meant to scare the population into giving up their guns and Second Amendment rights. Jones also smeared the parents of the dead children, calling them “crisis actors.” None of those claims were true but the pernicious ideas gained traction among the easily-influenced.

“So, if children were lost at Sandy Hook, my heart goes out to each and every one of those parents,” Jones said in a 2016 broadcast typical of the genre. “And the people who say they’re parents that I see on the news. The only problem is, I’ve watched a lot of soap operas. And I’ve seen actors before. And I know when I’m watching a movie and when I’m watching something real.”

Two initial defamation lawsuits were filed the same week against Jones and InfoWars during the spring of 2018.

Leonard Pozner and his ex-wife, Veronique De La Rosa, sued the conspiracy theorist and his biggest misinformation platform in the 345th Civil District Court. Neil Heslin filed a substantially similar lawsuit in the 53rd Civil District Court. Each of the plaintiffs were represented by Houston-area attorney Mark Bankston. Heslin later filed a second lawsuit against Jones and his fast-crumbling media network in the 261st Civil District Court.

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/tex...he-ground/

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Fry's Electronics





Funky electronics chain Fry’s is no more
an hour ago



FILE- In this Oct. 21, 2009 file photo, a small crowd begins to gather outside a Fry's Electronics store in Renton, Wash. The electronics chain is permanently closing, citing the struggles it faced as a retailer during the coronavirus pandemic. The company, which was in business for 36 years, had 31 stores in nine states. Fry’s Electronics Inc. said it stopped regular operations and began the wind-down process of its business on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Fry’s Electronics, the go-to chain for tech tinkerers looking for an obscure part, is closing for good.
The company, perhaps even more well known for outlandish themes at some of its stores, from Aztec to “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” said Wednesday in an online posting that the COVID-19 pandemic had made it impossible to continue.
Fans immediately took to Twitter to post images and memories (good and bad).

The chain was concentrated on the West Coast, but had 31 stores in nine states. It was founded 36 years ago.

The pandemic has done heavy damage to retailers, but Fry’s was already getting hammered by online competition and a battle between heavy-hitters Best Buy and Amazon.com.
Fry’s Electronics Inc. said its operations have ceased and the wind-down of locations will begin immediately. Customers with electronics being repaired in-store store are being asked to pick them up.
The chain’s online presence appears largely to have been shut down

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Possible explanation:






It went from being the sort of place that one went an hour to get to to a miserable place at which to shop. It was many things to the computer geeks, including one of the best magazine stores around. Computer geeks read. Oh, do they read!

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Here's a sign of big trouble for the airline industry:

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K-Mart is closing its last store in Michigan, the state in which the company opened its first store.

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Good news:

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico's government formally exited bankruptcy Tuesday, completing the largest public debt restructuring in U.S. history after announcing nearly seven years ago that it was unable to pay its more than $70 billion debt.

The exit means that the U.S. Caribbean territory's government will resume billion-dollar payments to bondholders for the first time in several years, settle some $1 billion worth of claims filed by residents and local businesses and issue more than $10 billion worth of bonds. The government also will restore up to $1.3 billion taken from a public pension system.

"This is a significant success," said Natalie Jaresko, executive director of the federal control board that oversees Puerto Rico's finances and its debt restructuring process. "Remaining in bankruptcy has been a drag on the economy in multiple ways."

The bankruptcy led to widely criticized austerity measures on an island that paid some $1 billion in fees to consultants and lawyers and in other expenses during the process.

The exit was a priority for the board and Jaresko, who previously announced she is retiring April 1. A replacement has not been named yet. The board is expected to remain in place until Puerto Rico has four consecutive balanced budgets, a feat that has yet to be achieved.

The debt restructuring plan was approved by a federal judge in January. It reduces claims against Puerto Rico's government from $33 billion to just over $7.4 billion, with 7 cents of every taxpayer dollar going to debt service, compared with 25 cents previously.

"This is a transcendental moment," said Gov. Pedro Pierluisi. "The plan is not perfect ... but it has a lot of good things."
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The board has clashed several times with Pierluisi and previous administrations, particularly on a proposal to reduce certain monthly pension benefits that was ultimately scrapped.

The plan also creates a public pension reserve trust that will be funded with more than $10 billion in upcoming years.

"For decades, past governments have neglected to put aside enough money," Jaresko said.

While many celebrated Puerto Rico's exit from bankruptcy, Jaresko said it is unlikely the island will be able to access financial markets soon because it has yet to get its audited financial statements up to date.

Puerto Rico accumulated more than $70 billion in public debt and more than $50 billion in public pension liabilities through decades of corruption, mismanagement and excessive borrowing. The U.S. Congress created the federal board in 2016, a year after the island's government said it was unable to pay its debt.

https://www.startribune.com/puerto-rico-...600156062/

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Revlon, best known for its cosmetics, files for Chapter 11.



On June 16, 2022, Revlon filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after struggling with debt, rising competition, supply chain challenges, and falling behind evolving beauty standards.[31][32] A few hours after the bankruptcy announcement, Revlon's shares lost more than 13% of their value.[33] According to a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, Revlon listed assets and liabilities between $1 billion and $10 billion. Revlon which had been managed by Perelman's daughter Debra Perelman since mid-2018, had long-term debt of $3.31 billion as of March 31, 2022.[34] This comes after avoiding bankruptcy in 2020. It was one of the last remaining holdings of Ronald Perelman.[35] Bloomberg News reported that the company's bankruptcy process could be "complicated by financial controversies."[36]

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Contributing factors:


On November 5, 1985, at a price of $58 per share, totaling $2.7 billion, Revlon was sold to Pantry Pride (later renamed to Revlon Group, Inc.), a subsidiary of Ronald Perelman's MacAndrews & Forbes. The buyout—engineered with the help of junk bond king Michael P. Milken—saddled Revlon with a huge $2.9 billion debt load, which became an albatross around the company's neck for years to come. Pantry Pride Inc. offered to buy any or all of Revlon's 38.2 million outstanding shares for $47.5 a share when its street price stood at $45 a share. Initially rejected, he repeatedly raised his offer until it reached $53 a share while fighting Revlon's management every step of the way. Forstmann Little & Company swooped in at $56 a share, a brief public bidding war ensued, and Perelman triumphed with an offer of $58 a share. Perelman paid $1.8 billion to Revlon's shareholders, but he also paid $900 million of other costs associated with the purchase.[15] Perelman filed suit in the Delaware Court of Chancery to force Revlon to accept Perelman's offer, and the resulting appellate decision, Revlon v. MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, was a landmark case in determining the obligations of public company directors in hostile takeover situations under Delaware law.


Perelman had Revlon sell four divisions: two for $1 billion, the vision care division for $574 million, and the National Health Laboratories division which became a publicly owned corporation in 1988. Additional make-up lines were purchased for Revlon: Max Factor in 1987 and Betrix in 1989, later sold to Procter & Gamble in 1991.[16] Also in 1991, Revlon sold the Clean & Clear brand to Johnson & Johnson.

In 2011, PETA removed Revlon and other high-profile cosmetic brands from its list of companies who do not test their products on animals after the organization learned they were paying Chinese laboratories to test their cosmetics on rabbits and other animals.[citation needed]

In August 2013, Revlon Consumer Products Corp. bought the Colomer Group from CVC Capital Partners, a private equity firm, for $660 million.[17]

After suffering business loss in 2011 and 2012, at the end of 2013, Revlon announced that it will exit the Chinese market, which employs 1,100 people. The business in China accounted for just 2 percent portion of net sales of Revlon's international operations.[18]

On November 1, 2013, Revlon named Lorenzo Delpani as President and CEO.[19]
In March 2014, Revlon announced leaving midtown and relocate headquarters to the top the two floors of One New York Plaza.[20]

On September 22, 2014, Revlon's board of directors elected Roberto Simon as executive vice president and chief financial officer, effective as of Sept. 30.[21]

On April 30, 2015, Revlon completed the acquisition of U.K. based fragrance management company CBBeauty including its U.K. distributor SAS & Company.[22]

On June 16, 2016, Revlon announced to purchase its competitor Elizabeth Arden, Inc. for $870 million.[23] The acquisition was completed on September 7, 2016.[24] Revlon also acquired Cutex from Coty Inc. in 2016. [25]
The company announced on January 29, 2017, that CEO Fabian Garcia would leave the company at the end of February. Board member, Paul Meister, would become executive vice chairman of the board and run the day-to-day operations. A quarterly report from the end of 2017 estimated its quarterly loss falling approximately between $60 million and $80 million.[26]

In May 2018, the company announced the appointment of Debra Perelman, the daughter of Ronald Perelman, to the position of chief executive officer. She will be the first ever female CEO of the company after serving as COO starting in January 2018 and serving on the board since 2015.[27]
In January 2019, Seeking Alpha[28] published an article regarding trading anomalies on the Revlon stock (REV); it is under investigation.

In August 2020, American bank Citi wrongly wired $900 million to creditors of Revlon. The wire sparked a "protracted legal fight". In October, the same year, the bank was fined $400 million by the US bank regulators as a result of their risk in control systems and was ordered to update their technology.[29]
On September 28, 2021, the UK's Infected Blood Inquiry heard evidence about Armour's use of hemophilia treatment products during the 1970s and 80s, which caused Hepatitis C and HIV infections, including its period under the control of Revlon Healthcare.[30]


Comment:  In business, "debt" and "death" differ by one sound. 

The recent Reagan-to-Trump era of neoliberalism has come to an end, but what people got away with due to near-zero interest rates  and the unusually sympathetic treatment of "private equity" in regulatory relief and tax laws could crack. As interest rates leave the near-zero, leverage can go from a sensible way of buying equity to ruin. Maybe it would be better if businesses paid more attention to the customer base and plant operations and less to financial legerdemain. When such was so, working people had some opportunity and security, and prosperity was far more widespread.

Private equity is the euphemism for corporate raiding in which a hostile investor lined up credit to buy a cash-rich business or one with what could easily become a captive market. Low-interest loans made such possible. One might think that low-cost loans would make investments in plant and equipment that create jobs much easier... but private equity made it far easier to strip assets (using the cash to pay the lenders). With a captive market, as in real estate, private equity could buy up rental properties and jack up rents on tenants in the few places that still have vibrant economies. So if you are a software engineer in Silicon Valley you are not going to give up your career so that you can find cheap housing in the Rust Belt where you might get to start over as a bank clerk or table-busser. You might end up paying 60% of your post-tax income on rent instead. 



Many of us remember when Revlon was a premium brand of cosmetics and fragrances. One paid a premium for its stuff at places like K-Mart instead of taking chances with dodgy private-label stuff. Revlon put much into advertising to maintain an image of quality. Over time Revlon went from "premium" to "meh". Private-label stuff is "meh" 


One way to corporate death is to debase the product for quick profits while keeping the price high. I look at such entities as disparate as Packard automobiles, PanAm and TWA airlines, Schlitz beer, Marantz stereo (someone bought the name and is using it for premium electronics), Sears, and now Revlon. OK, K-Mart always was "meh".

[pbrower2a]

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Welcome to Bloomberg Crypto, our twice-weekly look at Bitcoin, blockchain and more. If someone forwarded this to you, sign up here. In today’s edition, Emily Nicolle identifies a troubling truth about crypto underlying the FTX debacle:

As global investigators and regulators prepare to delve deeper into the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s now-defunct crypto empire, others in the digital-asset industry are keen to show that they have everything in order. But once authorities are done with the most immediate problem that FTX presents — including possible criminal behavior — their next action will likely be to crack down on bad habits that are rife throughout the sector.

Share this article
[/url]






Welcome to Bloomberg Crypto, our twice-weekly look at Bitcoin, blockchain and more. If someone forwarded this to you, [url=https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/crypto]sign up here. In today’s edition, Emily Nicolle identifies a troubling truth about crypto underlying the FTX debacle: 
The lapse in FTX’s collapse
As global investigators and regulators prepare to delve deeper into the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s now-defunct crypto empire, others in the digital-asset industry are keen to show that they have everything in order. But once authorities are done with the most immediate problem that FTX presents — including possible criminal behavior — their next action will likely be to crack down on bad habits that are rife throughout the sector.
Lackluster risk management, slippery governance and incomplete disclosures can be found across crypto, a direct result of it still being a young industry with a lot of freedom and not enough scrutiny. 
While not always illegal, these things would be frowned upon in more traditional sectors that have been subject to longstanding oversight by regulators. They also include opaque financial disclosures, a complex web of offshore entities, or suspiciously close relationships with sister companies — all things found in a new FTX bankruptcy filing on Thursday. 
One issue in particular that seems in need of addressing is antitrust, and preventing the monopolization of an industry by any single player. Binance, as the largest crypto exchange by several orders of magnitude, is an obvious contender for finding itself under the microscope.
Bankman-Fried had already amassed a very large presence across much of crypto and finance, as demonstrated by the graphic below. FTX and Alameda Research both had sizeable venture capital arms, and others have since commented on how having an exchange-issued token like FTT can present both competitive and risk-management concerns.

Sam Bankman-Fried's Web of Influence
SBF's companies have had relationships with who-is-who of crypto and beyond

Source: Bloomberg
Note: *Exited FTX stake in 2021

FTX’s new CEO John J. Ray remarked in its filing on Thursday that “never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.” If and when the crypto industry finds itself under a more stringent regulatory spotlight, one would hope companies won’t be as prone to such lapses.
Charting it out

Pricey Zombie
Even after FTX's coin plunged into zombie territory, the cryptocurrency has a market value of $500 million

Source: Bloomberg

 
Hearing them out
“In terms of the celebrity of Mr. Bankman-Fried, his unconventional leadership style, his incessant and disruptive tweeting since the Petition Date, and the almost complete lack of dependable corporate records, these Chapter 11 Cases are unprecedented ... enormous efforts are underway to bring some semblance of order to a chaotic environment.”
Lawyers for FTX 
Bankruptcy court filings
Counsel for the insolvent crypto exchange describe their efforts to stabilize the collapsed exchange as it works its way through bankruptcy
What we’re reading (and writing)

• FTX’s Crypto Kids Came Dangerously Close to Upending Futures
  
• Sam Bankman-Fried Tries to Explain Himself (Vox) 
  
• Silbert’s Once-$10 Billion Crypto Empire Is Showing Cracks 
  
• FTX Debacle Could Drag Down Decentralized Crypto Too (Wall Street Journal)
  
• Winklevoss Faithful Have a $700 Million Problem in Genesis Halt
  
• Matt Levine’s Money Stuff: FTX Creates Crypto Contagion (Bloomberg Opinion)
  

Thank you for reading. If someone forwarded this to you, sign up here. We welcome all feedback at crypto@bloomberg.net. 

Follow us on Twitter at @crypto. To access cryptocurrency prices on the Bloomberg Terminal, type CRYP <GO>; for top crypto news and analysis, type TOP CRYPTO <GO>.
— With assistance by Muyao Shen and Vildana Hajric

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Grifting can be hazardous to your freedom.

ATLANTA (AP) — Reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley were sentenced Monday to lengthy prison terms after being convicted earlier this year on charges including bank fraud and tax evasion.

U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross in Atlanta gave Todd Chrisley 12 years in prison, while Julie Chrisley got seven years behind bars, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Atlanta. Each is to serve three years supervised release afterward, and Ross also ordered them to pay restitution in an amount to be determined later.

The Chrisleys gained fame with their show “Chrisley Knows Best,” which follows their tight-knit, boisterous family. Federal prosecutors said the couple engaged in an extensive bank fraud scheme and then hid their wealth from tax authorities while flaunting their lavish lifestyle.

“The Chrisleys have built an empire based on the lie that their wealth came from dedication and hard work,” prosecutors wrote in a pre-sentencing court filing. “The jury’s unanimous verdict sets the record straight: Todd and Julie Chrisley are career swindlers who have made a living by jumping from one fraud scheme to another, lying to banks, stiffing vendors, and evading taxes at every corner.”

https://apnews.com/article/entertainment...6504855d9f

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Sam Bankman-Fried’s Admission About Secret GOP Donations Provoke An FEC Complaint
A watchdog says the disgraced cryptocurrency CEO's secretive methods were illegal.
[/url]


By 
Molly Redden
Dec 9, 2022, 05:20 PM EST






[url=https://twitter.com/share?text=Sam%20Bankman-Fried%20was%20one%20of%20the%20Democrats%27%20top%20donors%20in%202022.%20A%20watchdog%20group%20now%20says%20he%20used%20an%20illegal%20workaround%20to%20spend%20millions%20on%20Republicans%20secretly.&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffpost.com%2Fentry%2Fsam-bankman-fried-republican-donations_n_6393898be4b0c28146435a2e%3Futm_campaign%3Dshare_twitter%26ncid%3Dengmodushpmg00000004&hashtags=&via=HuffPostPol]









Sam Bankman-Fried testifies on May 12, 2022 before the House Agriculture Committee.
TOM WILLIAMS VIA GETTY IMAGES

A campaign finance watchdog has accused Sam Bankman-Fried, the ex-CEO of FTX, of flouting federal election law by using dark money groups to conceal millions in campaign donations to Republicans during the 2022 primary campaign.

Bankman-Fried was the CEO of the massive cryptocurrency exchange FTX until November when the company abruptly imploded and filed for bankruptcy. Multiple U.S. regulatory agencies are now investigating Bankman-Fried, 30, who presented himself as a grown-up in the unregulated cryptocurrency world, and the claims that his companies misused billions in customers’ money.


In a complaint to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) cited a November interview between Bankman-Fried and YouTuber Tiffany Fong, in which Bankman-Fried claimed to be “the second or third biggest Republican donor this year.”

Bankman-Fried is widely known to have donated roughly $37 million to Democratic candidates in 2022. But in the interview, he claimed to have donated “about the same amount” to Republicans. He said he did it anonymously because he anticipated a backlash if his ties to the GOP became public.

He apparently hid these donations by contributing to dark money groups that can spend unlimited money to influence elections and are not required under federal law to disclose the names of their donors.



But under the law, those groups are supposed to maintain a pretense of operating separately from any political candidates. By admitting that he was relying on dark money groups as merely a pass-through, CREW argued, Bankman-Fried is relinquishing any plausible deniability that he was donating millions to support his preferred candidates directly. Bankman-Fried did not respond to a request for comment.

“I will always support constructive, bipartisan lawmakers and candidates who support the causes I believe in — chief among them, prevention of the next pandemic,” he said in a statement emailed to CNBC.

At the same time that he was donating millions to political candidates, he was also lobbying Washington to embrace a new regulatory framework for cryptocurrency that would have been highly favorable to FTX.

And he was not alone. His FTX co-CEO, Ryan Salame, was one of the top 10 donors to Republican candidates this cycle, giving more than $23 million. If Bankman-Fried secretly funneled money to Republicans, it would appear to fit a broader business strategy of making serious inroads with both parties to improve the company’s relationships in Washington.

Salame spent at least $1 million trying to launch the political career of his girlfriend, Michelle Bond, the head of a D.C.-based cryptocurrency trade association. Bond also ran for an open congressional seat in New York’s 1st District.

Salame spent $750,000 supporting Bond through a super PAC he created, the Stand for New York Committee, and donated $250,000 to VIEW PAC, a group that helps elect Republican women. The donation instantly made Salame one of VIEW PAC’s top donors in the 2022 midterms; VIEW PAC endorsed Bond just a few weeks later.

Bond lined up a bevy of MAGA endorsements, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle. She hired Axiom Strategies, a top-flight Republican consultancy, to run her campaign.

But her candidacy floundered amid accusations that she was only a resident of New York’s 1st District on paper.

During her campaign, Bond and Salame purchased a secondary home for $3.995 million in Potomac, Maryland, a McMansion-studded suburb for D.C. millionaires. The 13,500-square-foot house features a pool, gold-leaf ceilings, and seven fireplaces and abuts a former PGA Tour golf course.






A bitcoin logo seen displayed on a smartphone with a FTX logo on the background. A campaign finance watchdog has accused Sam Bankman-Fried, the ex-CEO of FTX, of using dark money groups to conceal millions in campaign donations to Republicans during the 2022 primary campaign.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY AVISHEK DAS/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES

Early in FTX bankruptcy proceedings, its new CEO revealed that Salame received a massive $55 million personal loan from FTX’s sister company, Alameda Research. It is unclear whether he used that money to make political donations. Bond and Salame did not respond to interview requests.

Despite his attempts to hide his donations to Republicans, a few large contributions to the party can be traced back to Bankman-Fried.

One vehicle was the Crypto Innovation PAC, which donated nearly $3.2 million to nine Republicans.

Most of the PAC’s money ($2.8 million) came from GMI PAC, whose top donors include Bankman-Fried, Salame, Marc Andreesen, Ben Horowitz and Circle, a digital currency company.

FTX also donated roughly $300,000 of company money to GMI PAC, apparently in the form of donating stablecoin to the campaign, which the campaign then sold via FTX. GMI also gave $4.75 million to Web3 Forward, a PAC supporting Democrats.

Given his admission, the normally moribund FEC might find a path to sanctioning Bankman-Fried, but the crypto mogul might have more serious problems to worry about first.

The New York Times reported Thursday that federal investigators have broadened their inquiry into him and are probing whether he engaged in illegal market manipulation.

Bankman-Fried also agreed to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Dec. 13 — but it’s not clear he has committed to doing so in person. He lives in the Bahamas and has not set foot on American soil since FTX collapsed.


as accused Sam Bankman-Fried, the ex-CEO of FTX, of flouting federal election law by using dark money groups to conceal millions in campaign donations to Republicans during the 2022 primary campaign.

Bankman-Fried was the CEO of the massive cryptocurrency exchange FTX until November when the company abruptly imploded and filed for bankruptcy. Multiple U.S. regulatory agencies are now investigating Bankman-Fried, 30, who presented himself as a grown-up in the unregulated cryptocurrency world, and the claims that his companies misused billions in customers’ money.

In a complaint to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) cited a November interview between Bankman-Fried and YouTuber Tiffany Fong, in which Bankman-Fried claimed to be “the second or third biggest Republican donor this year.”

Bankman-Fried is widely known to have donated roughly $37 million to Democratic candidates in 2022. But in the interview, he claimed to have donated “about the same amount” to Republicans. He said he did it anonymously because he anticipated a backlash if his ties to the GOP became public.

He apparently hid these donations by contributing to dark money groups that can spend unlimited money to influence elections and are not required under federal law to disclose the names of their donors.

But under the law, those groups are supposed to maintain a pretense of operating separately from any political candidates. By admitting that he was relying on dark money groups as merely a pass-through, CREW argued, Bankman-Fried is relinquishing any plausible deniability that he was donating millions to support his preferred candidates directly. Bankman-Fried did not respond to a request for comment.

“I will always support constructive, bipartisan lawmakers and candidates who support the causes I believe in — chief among them, prevention of the next pandemic,” he said in a statement emailed to CNBC.

At the same time that he was donating millions to political candidates, he was also lobbying Washington to embrace a new regulatory framework for cryptocurrency that would have been highly favorable to FTX.

And he was not alone. His FTX co-CEO, Ryan Salame, was one of the top 10 donors to Republican candidates this cycle, giving more than $23 million. If Bankman-Fried secretly funneled money to Republicans, it would appear to fit a broader business strategy of making serious inroads with both parties to improve the company’s relationships in Washington.

Salame spent at least $1 million trying to launch the political career of his girlfriend, Michelle Bond, the head of a D.C.-based cryptocurrency trade association. Bond also ran for an open congressional seat in New York’s 1st District.

Salame spent $750,000 supporting Bond through a super PAC he created, the Stand for New York Committee, and donated $250,000 to VIEW PAC, a group that helps elect Republican women. The donation instantly made Salame one of VIEW PAC’s top donors in the 2022 midterms; VIEW PAC endorsed Bond just a few weeks later.

Bond lined up a bevy of MAGA endorsements, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle. She hired Axiom Strategies, a top-flight Republican consultancy, to run her campaign.

But her candidacy floundered amid accusations that she was only a resident of New York’s 1st District on paper.

During her campaign, Bond and Salame purchased a secondary home for $3.995 million in Potomac, Maryland, a McMansion-studded suburb for D.C. millionaires. The 13,500-square-foot house features a pool, gold-leaf ceilings, and seven fireplaces and abuts a former PGA Tour golf course.

A bitcoin logo seen displayed on a smartphone with a FTX logo on the background. A campaign finance watchdog has accused Sam Bankman-Fried, the ex-CEO of FTX, of using dark money groups to conceal millions in campaign donations to Republicans during the 2022 primary campaign.
A bitcoin logo seen displayed on a smartphone with a FTX logo on the background. A campaign finance watchdog has accused Sam Bankman-Fried, the ex-CEO of FTX, of using dark money groups to conceal millions in campaign donations to Republicans during the 2022 primary campaign.PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY AVISHEK DAS/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES
Early in FTX bankruptcy proceedings, its new CEO revealed that Salame received a massive $55 million personal loan from FTX’s sister company, Alameda Research. It is unclear whether he used that money to make political donations. Bond and Salame did not respond to interview requests.

Despite his attempts to hide his donations to Republicans, a few large contributions to the party can be traced back to Bankman-Fried.

One vehicle was the Crypto Innovation PAC, which donated nearly $3.2 million to nine Republicans.

Most of the PAC’s money ($2.8 million) came from GMI PAC, whose top donors include Bankman-Fried, Salame, Marc Andreesen, Ben Horowitz and Circle, a digital currency company.

FTX also donated roughly $300,000 of company money to GMI PAC, apparently in the form of donating stablecoin to the campaign, which the campaign then sold via FTX. GMI also gave $4.75 million to Web3 Forward, a PAC supporting Democrats.

Given his admission, the normally moribund FEC might find a path to sanctioning Bankman-Fried, but the crypto mogul might have more serious problems to worry about first.

The New York Times reported Thursday that federal investigators have broadened their inquiry into him and are probing whether he engaged in illegal market manipulation.

Bankman-Fried also agreed to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Dec. 13 — but it’s not clear he has committed to doing so in person. He lives in the Bahamas and has not set foot on American soil since FTX collapsed.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sam-bankm...8146435a2e

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This is moral failure, and not a full collapse. The Trump organization has been convicted of seventeen counts of tax fraud. I cannot assume that this will lead to dissolution, but businesses that do tax fraud not only face restitution and fines, but also the perception that they may also commit accounting fraud. CPA firms and lenders look unfavorably upon such.

Most giant enterprises are highly leveraged, and I would expect such to be so for the Trump organization. Such organizations would die without the ability to get financing as loans and low-interest debt. It might not be long before the Trump organization is worth more dead than alive.