Below are all the posts — topics as well as replies — that mention the hashtag #bankruptcy.
Mention #bankruptcy in your post to continue the discussion!
Oregon's small business bankruptcies reached a 12-year high in 2025. Approximately 250 businesses filed for bankruptcy protection statewide. This surge reflects a national trend driven by higher interest rates and rising costs. Layoffs at large employers like Intel and Nike also affected the local economy. Smaller firms and nonprofits face financial stress, including unpaid invoices.
https://hoodline.com/2026/02/layoffs-pile-up-as-portland-biz-bankruptcies-soar-to-12-year-high/
Bankruptcy is almost inevitable at this point. I can’t believe how quickly things turned so sour. I hate to say it, but QVC and, by extension, HSN, seem headed down the same path as Blockbuster and other companies that served their purpose but became outdated and faded out. It’s probably time to start looking for a new job.
honest question
A Texas judge ordered Chapter 11 trustees for Kentucky Owl and Stoli bankruptcies. Lender Fifth Third Bank successfully argued for an orderly sale of 35,000 bourbon barrels. This approach aims to maximize recovery for creditors over immediate liquidation. The wider bourbon industry faces a downturn, impacting several companies. Major brands like Brown-Forman and Diageo have announced layoffs due to declining sales.
https://www.kentucky.com/lexgoeat/bourbon/article314595107.html
Robert Bearden Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The trucking carrier submitted its voluntary petition on January 26. Court records show the company listed between 1 and 49 creditors. Assets and liabilities were estimated between $0 and $50,000. Drivers were reportedly instructed to return company trucks.
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/georgia-based-carrier-with-128-drivers-files-for-chapter-11-bankruptcy
50% sure they will announce chapter 7 restructure.
We have had too many years to fix the company but nothing has changed only more bad decisions by management and quality/recall issues by engineers. I feel like we are going to be the next sears. I wonder which company will buy the new corporate buildings in Dearborn few years from now. Very sad story indeed. Thanks Farley and the rest of the executive leadership team for this…
Eddie Bauer faces expected bankruptcy. Recent layoffs preceded this. The layoffs happened at the company's headquarters. Bankruptcy is now anticipated. These two events are linked.
https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2026/02/03/eddie-bauer-prepares-chapter-11-filing.html
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I can't believe they waited until the end of the day to start the walkouts. 3 so far when they got to me. I hope they can actually afford the severance they offered.
Francesca's, a women's fashion retailer, will close all its stores. The company filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. It plans to liquidate all inventory. Going-out-of-business sales are currently underway. This decision follows a lender default notice and lost investor funding.
ttps://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2026/01/29/is-francescas-closing-stores-in-louisiana-retailer-filed-for-bankruptcy-going-out-of-business-sales/88412473007/
... when it's talking about the 100th anniversary of its IPO. Is that even a thing? Has any other publicly traded century old company -- GE, GM, Coca-Cola, etc. -- ever "celebrated" its IPO? (What about the years when NCR was part of AT&T, shouldn't that be excluded? Current management probably doesn't even know about that.) How much did management spend on this NYC junket?! Did David and Eric come back?!
This company is in very bad shape. James Kelly's strategy is to load the company up with payments-related bells and whistles and sell it to Global Payments. But the payments industry -- any company that isn't Visa or Mastercard -- has also become a commodity.. Nobody's going to buy this dog, unless it's out of bankruptcy.
The way things are going, that just might happen.
Xerox is not announcing Chapter 11, but it is clearly working hard to avoid it.
The company is handing out free warrants to shareholders and bondholders as a way to quietly re-engineer its balance sheet before things get worse.
This is an out-of-court, shareholder-inclusive, quasi-restructuring tool designed to reduce debt without filing for Chapter 11, while neutralizing lawsuits and buying time.
In other words: advanced financial engineering designed to keep control out of a bankruptcy court.
If the business stabilizes and the stock recovers, those warrants can be used to turn debt into shares, cutting leverage without burning cash.
If the recovery never comes, the warrants expire and nothing happens... except that Xerox might still be standing.
Behind all the financial and investment jargon, don't lose sight of what's really important:
Management is fully aware of how close we are to filing for Chapter 11 and is using the last tricks in the book before being forced to do so.
This move doesn’t mean that bankruptcy is happening tomorrow, but it does mean the current capital structure is extremely fragile and time is a crucial factor.
In short: this is about survival, control, and avoiding the kind of court-driven restructuring in which senior management (yes, the people architecting this measure) lose all influence.
After the first bankruptcy where Neimans stiffed creditors or paid only 1.7 cents to 36 cents on the dollar. Raemdinck was there when we didn't pay 2.667 billion to them. Now he is back. Where he will Play games on what you are owed... Then claim it is the court.ya right. Vendors don't want to take losses again while he just got 7 million. The blood Letting continues
High street shops Claire’s and The Original Factory Shop are going into administration, which could put about 2,500 jobs at risk. Claire’s, which is well known for selling accessories to young people, had been looking for a buyer after its American owner went bankrupt last year. Modella Capital, which owns both stores, said the businesses will enter insolvency proceedings in the UK and Ireland.
https://www.costar.com/article/799870821/mall-giant-simon-seeks-to-scrap-two-saks-global-store-leases
https://www.retaildive.com/news/saks-off-5th-online-liquidating-five-years-after-split-brick-and-mortar/810454/
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZajAA1Ip5mg
https://www.crn.com/news/ai/2026/ibm-q4-earnings-preview-5-things-to-know
Simon wasn't paid rent..filed for eviction before the bankruptcy. Wants them gone. That would only leave Nordstrom in town
Record profits and I got my walking papers today as a senior engineer. Dozens of others too! Go Bank of India!
600 full time jobs & 800 to 900 seasonal jobs will be lost.
The company filed BK recently.
Link to the article: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/14/saks-global-files-for-bankruptcy-protection.html
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLbYeI7vvw4
Link to the article: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/14/saks-global-files-for-bankruptcy-protection.html
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLbYeI7vvw4
source: https://therobinreport.com/saks-global-another-trainwreck/
01.07.26: The Robin Report: Saks Global: Another Trainwreck by Mark Cohen
Saks Global is Richard Baker’s next and maybe his final retail failure. Lord & Taylor, The Hudson Bay Company in all its various iterations in Canada and Europe, and now the monstrosity he recently created by putting Saks Fifth Avenue, Saks Off Fifth, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman together, teeters on bankruptcy. This recent disaster is the result of the company’s failure to make a required $100 million interest payment to lenders at year’s end.
Baker, as a real estate manipulator, gets high marks. As a retail leader and retail strategist, however, he has been an abject failure.
Baker Shadow Play
Baker suddenly appeared on the retail scene in 2006 when his real estate company, NRDC, bought Lord & Taylor from the newly branded Federated/Macy’s Corporation, which inherited L&T when it acquired May Company stores. Then, in 2008, Baker acquired control of The Hudson Bay Company following the untimely death of its majority shareholder. Three years later, in 2011, Baker’s HBC sold its Zeller’s stores in Canada to Target Corporation for $1.8 billion. Kudos to Baker, as most of the Zeller’s store locations were arguably worthless as hapless Target would soon find out.
When I was Director of Retail Studies at the Columbia Business School, I attended a student-led Retail and Luxury Goods Conference in 2012, keynoted by Baker. He gave a rambling off the cuff 40-minute presentation in which he regaled the 250 students and guests in the audience about how great it was to be rich; how he did little work at Wharton having surrounded himself with “good looking babes” eager to do his work; and how he had just “stolen” Lord & Taylor from Federated for $1.2 billion. Narcissism aside, he was likely correct in his view that Federated could not wait to unload L&T as an outlying May Company property. He went on to talk about how easy it was to master the art of merchandising based on his exposure to L&T’s business. Completely put off by this performance, I was unfortunately seated in a location that precluded me from leaving early.
Next in 2013, Baker acquired Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off Fifth stores in what might be described as another triumph of price over value. Saks’ management had failed to fully recognize the leverage it could have used on its own behalf based on its Fifth Avenue store’s real estate valuation. Baker, as a real estate manipulator, gets high marks. As a retail leader and retail strategist, however, he has been an abject failure. His stewardship of Lord & Taylor was pathetic.
In an effort to cut expenses, he attempted to rationalize back-of-the-house activities between Canada-based Bay stores and American-based L&T stores, which may have made sense to some clueless consultant but never worked in retail reality. He then came up with a scheme to downsize the L&T Fifth Avenue flagship and sold the building to that other paragon of business strategy, WeWork, eventually ki-ling the L&T brand.
Baker and The Bay
The disruption and ultimate liquidation of The Bay’s principal competitor in apparel, accessories and soft home, Sears Canada, should have resulted in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but The Bay failed to capitalize on it.
Moving Saks Fifth Avenue stores into The Bay stores spaces in Canada and introducing Saks Off Fifth in Canada was another failed initiative. In fact, moving Saks Fifth Avenue into a cavernous “low-brow” Bay location on Queen Street adjacent to the Eaton Center in Toronto was an incredible misstep in and of itself. The physical space was available, but the luxury customer certainly wasn’t there.
Opening over a dozen Bay department stores in the Netherlands in 2017 was another bone-headed move. Baker did a complex deal with Germany-based Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, securing retail space in the Netherlands, but again the customer just wasn’t there. Allegedly, Baker believed that since the Canadian Army liberated the Netherlands from the Na-is at the end of WWII, the Dutch would welcome a Canadian company with open arms. It didn’t happen. The Dutch Bay stores were all closed by 2019. The customers who might have remembered being liberated in 1945 were either dead or too old to patronize a Canadian-owned department store. Baker claimed he made money on this ridiculous foray, and he may very well have, but the Dutch paid a terrible price for this catastrophe.
Baker Business Model
In 2024, Baker set his sights on acquiring Sak’s principal competitor, Neiman Marcus/Bergdorf Goodman. The timing wasn’t great. There was the disappearance of luxury competitor Barney’s, and the Saks business at best treaded water. Also, Neiman Marcus/Bergdorf Goodman was struggling to put a challenging Chapter 11 Bankruptcy proceeding behind it.
There was also the monetization of hbc.com and saks.com, which raised a considerable amount of money from a group of hapless investors. These investors did not realize how completely counterproductive this strategy would prove to be.
Along the way, Richard Baker has presided over a never-ending list of lead executives, many of whom barely lasted two years with the company. There was Tina Johnson, Jeff Sherman, Bonnie Brooks, Jerry Storch, and Helena Foulkes, among others. And then there was Marc Metrick, whose 30-year tenure with Saks has just come to an abrupt end. But maybe it was 30 years too long. Metrick was a planning executive at Saks who, in recent years, masqueraded as its lead merchant.
Debt Economics
The history of two weak and/or weakened retail companies merging and finding success is simply this: There is no history. Add to that the non-starter of two companies that essentially do business with the same customer and in many cases in the same geographic locations. But these hurdles didn’t stop Baker from consummating a debt-laden merger of two icons. And incomprehensibly, for well over a year, the company failed to pay many of Saks’ vendors either on time or in many cases at all. So, now both companies have just completed a poor 2025 in sales. And having been cut off from receiving fresh inventory by a cynical factor community, Saks Global just failed to make that $100 million year-end interest payment.
Baker in Bankruptcy
Maybe Baker will come up with a bundle of new cash. If business remains as poor as it has been, any new cash infusion would only be a stopgap measure. Alternatively, the company might come up with a prepackaged restructuring agreement with its creditors. Or it will surrender to a voluntary or involuntary bankruptcy proceeding.
I’m not a bankruptcy attorney, but having lived through Federated department store’s successful restructure, and an up close and personal experience with Bradlees stores eventual failed emergence from bankruptcy, I think the bell may soon toll for Saks Global.
If it files for Chapter 11 financial relief, creditors organize and line up based upon their preexisting credit agreements (or lack thereof). Secured creditors, typically the company’s lenders, rely on collateral rights while unsecured creditors, typically vendors and service providers, hope for some eventual relief through the bankruptcy process. All payables from the company, whether current or past due, are frozen.
In a bankruptcy, legal and financial restructuring professionals line up for a typically substantial fee opportunity. A new lender or a consortium of lenders emerges to provide Debtor in Possession funding to enable the company to stay upright while in bankruptcy. All vendors are asked to resume shipping based on the newly created surety of DIP financing.
But, lacking confidence that past due receivables will eventually be paid, many vendors resort to selling their company receivables to distressed debt (or vulture) investors for substantial discounted values. This, in my opinion, is a terrible flaw in the bankruptcy process in that unsecured vendors, who you would expect to have a stake in the company’s eventual successful emergence from bankruptcy, have now traded places with investors seeking a fast financial return.
Saks Global at Risk
If Sak’s Global were operating as a stable platform with a successful sales and margin track record, with capable senior leadership, a reliable operating strategy, and good relationships with its vendors and customers, there would be ample reason for the company to navigate through bankruptcy and emerge with new debt and a newly restructured balance sheet. But none of this appears to be the case. As 2026 unfolds to what will undoubtedly be a challenging year for all retailers, the prospects for Saks Global are truly grim. My sense is that many vendors long ago stopped shipping or have curtailed their support for Saks, Neiman Marcus and maybe even Bergdorf Goodman, and they are unlikely to get back on board after having been egregiously abused these past few years.
Many will find another retailer to serve their customers if they haven’t already done so or continue to build a direct-to-consumer model of their own. Why wouldn’t they? Who needs the sturm und drang of a failing retail partner who doesn’t pay its bills? If that happens, Saks Global is toast.
source: https://therobinreport.com/saks-global-another-trainwreck/
01.07.26: The Robin Report: Saks Global: Another Trainwreck by Mark Cohen
Saks Global is Richard Baker’s next and maybe his final retail failure. Lord & Taylor, The Hudson Bay Company in all its various iterations in Canada and Europe, and now the monstrosity he recently created by putting Saks Fifth Avenue, Saks Off Fifth, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman together, teeters on bankruptcy. This recent disaster is the result of the company’s failure to make a required $100 million interest payment to lenders at year’s end.
Baker, as a real estate manipulator, gets high marks. As a retail leader and retail strategist, however, he has been an abject failure.
Baker Shadow Play
Baker suddenly appeared on the retail scene in 2006 when his real estate company, NRDC, bought Lord & Taylor from the newly branded Federated/Macy’s Corporation, which inherited L&T when it acquired May Company stores. Then, in 2008, Baker acquired control of The Hudson Bay Company following the untimely death of its majority shareholder. Three years later, in 2011, Baker’s HBC sold its Zeller’s stores in Canada to Target Corporation for $1.8 billion. Kudos to Baker, as most of the Zeller’s store locations were arguably worthless as hapless Target would soon find out.
When I was Director of Retail Studies at the Columbia Business School, I attended a student-led Retail and Luxury Goods Conference in 2012, keynoted by Baker. He gave a rambling off the cuff 40-minute presentation in which he regaled the 250 students and guests in the audience about how great it was to be rich; how he did little work at Wharton having surrounded himself with “good looking babes” eager to do his work; and how he had just “stolen” Lord & Taylor from Federated for $1.2 billion. Narcissism aside, he was likely correct in his view that Federated could not wait to unload L&T as an outlying May Company property. He went on to talk about how easy it was to master the art of merchandising based on his exposure to L&T’s business. Completely put off by this performance, I was unfortunately seated in a location that precluded me from leaving early.
Next in 2013, Baker acquired Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off Fifth stores in what might be described as another triumph of price over value. Saks’ management had failed to fully recognize the leverage it could have used on its own behalf based on its Fifth Avenue store’s real estate valuation. Baker, as a real estate manipulator, gets high marks. As a retail leader and retail strategist, however, he has been an abject failure. His stewardship of Lord & Taylor was pathetic.
In an effort to cut expenses, he attempted to rationalize back-of-the-house activities between Canada-based Bay stores and American-based L&T stores, which may have made sense to some clueless consultant but never worked in retail reality. He then came up with a scheme to downsize the L&T Fifth Avenue flagship and sold the building to that other paragon of business strategy, WeWork, eventually ki-ling the L&T brand.
Baker and The Bay
The disruption and ultimate liquidation of The Bay’s principal competitor in apparel, accessories and soft home, Sears Canada, should have resulted in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but The Bay failed to capitalize on it.
Moving Saks Fifth Avenue stores into The Bay stores spaces in Canada and introducing Saks Off Fifth in Canada was another failed initiative. In fact, moving Saks Fifth Avenue into a cavernous “low-brow” Bay location on Queen Street adjacent to the Eaton Center in Toronto was an incredible misstep in and of itself. The physical space was available, but the luxury customer certainly wasn’t there.
Opening over a dozen Bay department stores in the Netherlands in 2017 was another bone-headed move. Baker did a complex deal with Germany-based Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, securing retail space in the Netherlands, but again the customer just wasn’t there. Allegedly, Baker believed that since the Canadian Army liberated the Netherlands from the Na-is at the end of WWII, the Dutch would welcome a Canadian company with open arms. It didn’t happen. The Dutch Bay stores were all closed by 2019. The customers who might have remembered being liberated in 1945 were either dead or too old to patronize a Canadian-owned department store. Baker claimed he made money on this ridiculous foray, and he may very well have, but the Dutch paid a terrible price for this catastrophe.
Baker Business Model
In 2024, Baker set his sights on acquiring Sak’s principal competitor, Neiman Marcus/Bergdorf Goodman. The timing wasn’t great. There was the disappearance of luxury competitor Barney’s, and the Saks business at best treaded water. Also, Neiman Marcus/Bergdorf Goodman was struggling to put a challenging Chapter 11 Bankruptcy proceeding behind it.
There was also the monetization of hbc.com and saks.com, which raised a considerable amount of money from a group of hapless investors. These investors did not realize how completely counterproductive this strategy would prove to be.
Along the way, Richard Baker has presided over a never-ending list of lead executives, many of whom barely lasted two years with the company. There was Tina Johnson, Jeff Sherman, Bonnie Brooks, Jerry Storch, and Helena Foulkes, among others. And then there was Marc Metrick, whose 30-year tenure with Saks has just come to an abrupt end. But maybe it was 30 years too long. Metrick was a planning executive at Saks who, in recent years, masqueraded as its lead merchant.
Debt Economics
The history of two weak and/or weakened retail companies merging and finding success is simply this: There is no history. Add to that the non-starter of two companies that essentially do business with the same customer and in many cases in the same geographic locations. But these hurdles didn’t stop Baker from consummating a debt-laden merger of two icons. And incomprehensibly, for well over a year, the company failed to pay many of Saks’ vendors either on time or in many cases at all. So, now both companies have just completed a poor 2025 in sales. And having been cut off from receiving fresh inventory by a cynical factor community, Saks Global just failed to make that $100 million year-end interest payment.
Baker in Bankruptcy
Maybe Baker will come up with a bundle of new cash. If business remains as poor as it has been, any new cash infusion would only be a stopgap measure. Alternatively, the company might come up with a prepackaged restructuring agreement with its creditors. Or it will surrender to a voluntary or involuntary bankruptcy proceeding.
I’m not a bankruptcy attorney, but having lived through Federated department store’s successful restructure, and an up close and personal experience with Bradlees stores eventual failed emergence from bankruptcy, I think the bell may soon toll for Saks Global.
If it files for Chapter 11 financial relief, creditors organize and line up based upon their preexisting credit agreements (or lack thereof). Secured creditors, typically the company’s lenders, rely on collateral rights while unsecured creditors, typically vendors and service providers, hope for some eventual relief through the bankruptcy process. All payables from the company, whether current or past due, are frozen.
In a bankruptcy, legal and financial restructuring professionals line up for a typically substantial fee opportunity. A new lender or a consortium of lenders emerges to provide Debtor in Possession funding to enable the company to stay upright while in bankruptcy. All vendors are asked to resume shipping based on the newly created surety of DIP financing.
But, lacking confidence that past due receivables will eventually be paid, many vendors resort to selling their company receivables to distressed debt (or vulture) investors for substantial discounted values. This, in my opinion, is a terrible flaw in the bankruptcy process in that unsecured vendors, who you would expect to have a stake in the company’s eventual successful emergence from bankruptcy, have now traded places with investors seeking a fast financial return.
Saks Global at Risk
If Sak’s Global were operating as a stable platform with a successful sales and margin track record, with capable senior leadership, a reliable operating strategy, and good relationships with its vendors and customers, there would be ample reason for the company to navigate through bankruptcy and emerge with new debt and a newly restructured balance sheet. But none of this appears to be the case. As 2026 unfolds to what will undoubtedly be a challenging year for all retailers, the prospects for Saks Global are truly grim. My sense is that many vendors long ago stopped shipping or have curtailed their support for Saks, Neiman Marcus and maybe even Bergdorf Goodman, and they are unlikely to get back on board after having been egregiously abused these past few years.
Many will find another retailer to serve their customers if they haven’t already done so or continue to build a direct-to-consumer model of their own. Why wouldn’t they? Who needs the sturm und drang of a failing retail partner who doesn’t pay its bills? If that happens, Saks Global is toast.
U.S. logistics, manufacturing and supply-chain firms have started 2026 with a surge of layoffs, facility closures and bankruptcy filings, affecting more than 2,200 workers nationwide.
State notices and court records show job cuts spanning rail support services, parcel networks, food manufacturing, packaging, last-mile delivery and e-commerce, as companies grapple with lost contracts, high costs, excess capacity and tighter credit conditions.
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/layoffs-bankruptcies-batter-u-s-logistics-and-manufacturing-at-start-of-2026
Bankruptcy: more inevitable than Thanos.
Layoffs: a whole lot higher than 50% of the population.
This is coming from your friends across the highway in Deerfield (for now) at Essendant. Sycamore will destroy Walgreens and it will be torture before death. Watch out for yourself, try to get out, don't wait around for things to get better or any claims of severance payouts or bonuses. If not be ready for that day to happen at any moment. Don't get comfortable. This is just the beginning, they are not out for the best interests of the company or employees but rather their assets and any money they can su-k away. For a little context, at Essendant, they bought in their own management to play the game from the top. You have them now. First they need to get rid of employees so they would try to make people quit, RTO, unachievable goals, confusing business model/plans. Then they would change the severance policy, usually days before the layoffs and reduce it every time until there's nothing left. They will start selling off anything they can, in our case the core of the business, the warehouses, and business units they could get money for they sold. They sold off the core of the business, and all that remains is the empty shell of what once was a fortune 500 company. Always with the narrative it was low performing or best for the business. The top people will leave, they will torture anyone willing to stay on because they know they are desperate until the end. It might not have been great before, but it's surely not going to get any better. Also, it appears we will be abandoning Deerfield at the end of 2025 (in days), leaving the lease for the HQ building, with no plans on what will happen next. Bankruptcy maybe? Our parent company Staples is just holding on as well, and Quill also nearby saw their whole company be destroyed. All the other Sycamore holdings are also just barely existing just to keep those assets on a balance sheet so they can convince investors to move onto the next victim. Walgreens is and will be nothing more than a cash grab and a way to pad their holdings. There is no long term strategy, no business plan, and everything will just be scam. Just look at the partnerships with Amazon for their other businesses. It's all a distraction, and minor income, distracting from what is really happening. Wish you well and in closing, please care for yourself, find something else, f*** the PE.
This company is going to collapse, and you need to prepare yourself for that. I left many years ago because I saw the writing on the wall. The recent sale to private equity will not save the company; it's the final death knell. Let me tell you a little story:
I worked for Walgreens in the Pharmacy from 2005 until 2013. I enjoyed the work so much that I started to pursue a PharmD. The work was always grueling, and we were always strapped for time, even in the beginning. I remember working double shifts during hurricanes and eating on the back counter often because we didn't have time to take breaks. I've heard the pharmacy actually shuts down now for lunch...must be nice.
At any rate, from the time I started until the time I left, our budget was continuously reduced. We were asked to do more with less, and it wasn't just us who suffered, it was the customer experience as well. These are operational changes meant to increase margins or protect existing margins, but they are not strategic choices. The reason they were necessary at all is due to strategic missteps, but what were they?
Here it is, from this single strategic error, all subsequent failures originate: Walgreens as a company failed to see the entire market shifting beneath its feet. Their strategy was based on the following model: expand stores, expand sales per store, reduce costs, and reward shareholders. The company was, and still is, optimized for operational efficiency. This model was fundamentally obsolete the moment that CVS and Caremark merged to create a fully integrated pharmacy services provider.
They failed to realize that the number of stores or operational excellence is meaningless in an environment where the PBMs are now the locus of control. The PBMs control the formularies, and hence, demand. They set reimbursement rates, and hence, margin. The number of stores isn't an advantage in this environment. If anything, it's a vulnerability.
The most egregious part of all this, is that it was entirely predictable. It didn't happen overnight. Instead of shifting their strategy and trying to acquire their own PBM, WAG sold theirs off. Then in 2011, they tried to play chicken with Express Scripts, and again they were critically mistaken. The number of stores is not equivalent to bargaining power. They lost that fight, and were forced into a worse agreement because of it. From then on, they lost negotiating power permanently, and all other negotiations would be from a weakened position.
Were that not enough, they bought Boots in 2014, which again doesn't solve the issue of vertical integration. They were still operating under the assumption that expanding the footprint would lead to better profits.
In an act of desperation, they invested in Theranos, and I think we all know how that went.
So where did that lead them?
To the following negative feedback loop:
lower reimbursement -> lower margin
lower margin -> labor and store cuts
labor and store cuts -> worse customer experience
worse customer experience -> lower foot traffic
lower foot traffic -> lower sales and even weaker negotiating position
This loop will not stop, and it will not be broken by Private Equity. Those are the only tools private equity really has. They can make operational changes. They cannot solve the strategic failure. They cannot suddenly negotiate better deals with the PBMs without leverage. They cannot reverse the regulatory framework that allowed this level of vertical integration to happen. They cannot afford to vertically integrate themselves, and there are no PBMs that would be a viable target even if they could.
So, where does all that leave us? There is only one inevitable conclusion: bankruptcy.
I saw this coming and left. I ask you, do you trust the leadership that allowed the company to reach this state from a position of strength, to be able to turn it around from a position of weakness? They made countless strategic errors. Do you trust your career with them?
Saks Global Enterprises, facing limited options ahead of a more than $100 million debt payment due at the end of this month, is considering Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a last resort, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/irobot-co-founder-says-ftcs-opposition-amazon-deal-wrong-minded-following-bankruptcy-filing
The bankruptcy filing follows the termination of iRobot's proposed $1.4 billion acquisition by Amazon, which was abandoned in January 2024 amid a probe by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) – led by Lina Khan – and European regulators. The FTC's antitrust investigation was focused on Amazon's ability to favor its own products over its rivals.
iRobot co-founder and former CEO Colin Angle told FOX Business in an interview that the FTC's decision to oppose the merger struck him as "wrong-minded" and harmful in retrospect.
"I bet if you asked almost anyone prior to the blocking of the deal with iRobot: Would you rather see iRobot innovating like crazy, coming out with new and better robots for your home, or would you like to see it file for Chapter 11 in the process of being sold to a Chinese manufacturer?" he said. "The wrong thing probably happened."
Xerox’s problem is brutally simple: more cash goes out than comes in. Every quarter.
The business isn’t generating enough cash to cover interest, restructuring, and working capital.
Why? Because Xerox is burning cash from operations. Not investing cash. Burning it.
To plug the gap, they’re selling patents and borrowing money using what’s left of their Intellectual Property as collateral, basically pawning the family silver to pay this month’s bills.
At the current pace, they’ve got maybe 6–9 months of runway if they keep pulling levers like asset sales and emergency loans; without those, it’s closer to 2–3 quarters.
Seeking a $500M IP-backed loan means unsecured financing is effectively closed (credit rating at CCC+ = markets price in a real risk of default).
This does NOT fix the business, it just buys time.
If cash doesn’t turn positive fast (not “less negative,” but actually positive), the only realistic outcomes are:
#1 More asset sales (DocuShare, XMPie, CareAR, etc)
#2 Forced recapitalization (debt converts to equity, shareholders wiped)
#3 Chapter 11 (court-supervised version of #2)
Everything else you hear is just nicer words around that math.
The endgame is no longer theoretical, it’s just a matter of timing.
https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/xerox-seeks-500-million-ipbacked-loan-to-boost-liquidity--wsj-93CH-4408966
This is pure fraud and Trump needs to have Gary Cohen investigated!
They pushed all debt to 2029 push br all while paying themselves millions.They will start firing employees once investors start getting pissy but won't lower there salary. What happens when you hire a hillbilly CEO who sounds low IQ.
How can it not? Underpaid lackeys for decades training others, and core development is all outsourced.
Competitors with the good taste, rare talent and skill to innovate will make the company more and more irrelevant in due time as a guarantee.
a company that once was sold, got bankrupt and resurrected from the dead .... imagine all the cash these guys made/ will be making....
should we be suspicious ?
Will Frontier also face a massive lay off initiative?
Fiserv will come back from this. I believe Fiserv will declare bankruptcy and will be broken apart and sold off.
Where would you chronic whiners ever find your next job if Targets did.