Pay no attention to the nonstop parade of recent economic statistics that keep coming in way below expectations, nor the nonstop parade of exececutives, investment bankers, and lawyers into bankruptcy courts. More and more companies are finding themselves a little short of cash. From Wolf Richter, at wolfstreet.com:
“Come down to Houston,” William Snyder, leader of the Deloitte Corporate Restructuring Group, told Reuters. “You’ll see there is just a stream of consultants and bankruptcy attorneys running around this town.”
But it’s not just in Houston or in the oil patch. It’s in retail, healthcare, mining, finance…. Bankruptcies are suddenly booming, after years of drought.
In the first quarter, 26 publicly traded corporations filed for bankruptcy, up from 11 at the same time last year, Reuters reported. Six of these companies listed assets of over $1 billion, the most since Financial-Crisis year 2009. In total, they listed $34 billion in assets, the second highest for a first quarter since before the financial crisis, behind only the record $102 billion in 2009.
The largest bankruptcy was the casino operating company, Caesars Entertainment, which has been unprofitable for five years. It’s among the zombies of Corporate America, kept moving with new money from investors that had been driven to near insanity by the Fed’s six-plus years of interest rate repression.
Next in line were Doral Financial, security services outfit Altegrity, RadioShack, and Allied Nevada Gold. The first oil-and-gas company showed up in sixth place, Quicksilver Resources [Investors Crushed as US Natural Gas Drillers Blow Up].
Among the largest 15 sinners on the list, based on Bankruptcydata.com, are six oil-and-gas related companies. But mostly in the lower half. So far, larger energy companies are still hanging on by their teeth.
http://wolfstreet.com/2015/04/16/bankruptcies-soar-across-corporate-america-not-just-oil/
To continue reading: Bankruptcies Soar
