Billion-dollar bankruptcies highest since 2003

[UpInArms]

Source: Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billion-dollar bankruptcies are at their highest in five years only half way through 2008, according to bankruptcy filing tracker BankruptcyData.com.

A total of seven U.S. companies with more than a billion dollars in assets have filed for bankruptcy protection so far this year, it said.

Fremont General Corp (FMNTQ.PK), which was one of the largest U.S. providers of subprime mortgages before regulators ordered it to stop making the loans, was the largest filing of the year with $13 billion in pre-petition assets, BankruptcyData.com said. Fremont filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May, after arranging to sell bank branches and deposits to CapitalSource Inc (CSE.N).

SemGroup LP, the energy trader which filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors last week, was the second-largest bankruptcy filing of the year with $6 billion in pre-petition assets.

"We seem to be in the midst of a 'perfect storm' leading to more bankruptcies: high levels of debt, high energy and raw materials costs and weakness in the U.S. economy," George Putnam, III of New Generation Research, which publishes BankruptcyData.com said in a statement.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080729/bs_nm/bankruptcies_billions_dc

[valerief]

1. A billion dollars ain't what it used to be. Now everyone wants to be a trillionaire. nt

[Raine1967]

2. Whoopdy doo

These are companies. and a big friggin SEVEN at that.

They can go cry at the feet of thier god, Phil Gramm.

[Pale Blue Dot]

5. I'm getting tired of this attitude - and not for the reason you think.

I'm as anti-corporate, anti-greed as they come, and under normal circumstances I would be in agreement with you. However, these bankruptcies are costing hundreds of thousands of jobs, with no mechanism in place in our economy to create new ones. The time to fight these corporations was about ten years ago. Now it's too late. You can gloat all you want, but we are ALL going to suffer as these companies collapse.

[MadMaddie]

7. Hey FinFann no doubt you are right but it is not our place

to rescue these companies who hedged their bets with the Rethuglican "Let Free Market govern itself mantra".!! These companies had no shame in milking Americans of hard earned dollars while running these companies without ethics or thoughts of mitigation.

This is a direct result of deregulation by Phill Graham, Reagan and Rethuglican controlled Congress for years. The Rethuglicans gutted any control over these industries and we are living the results of it.

You are right many Americans that worked for these companies will lose their jobs but there are Millions of Americans losing their homes due to these companies practices.

This is the Rethuglican "Free Market" correcting itself. For every action there is a reaction.

Just as we should not have bailed out the Airline Industry after 9/11, or BearStearns after their crash, we should not bail out every billion dollar company that failed because they failed to follow practical business solutions. I can almost guarantee the CEO's of these companies aren't walking away broke.

[Pale Blue Dot]

9. I am totally against a bailout. These companies should not be saved.

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm just saying that gloating is not an appropriate response right now. Too many people are going to suffer over this.

[tech3149]

10. I'm with you Finn

I quit working about 7 years ago because of the mentality of management for pretty much any company I would want to work for, or as I put it, work with. I don't want to deal with management that considers me a liability rather than an asset. If it weren't for people like me, they couldn't make a dime. Screw the MBA's and Business Management tools that don't know squat about the business they run. For every credentialed executive, there are probably a thousand hard-working, poorly payed employees that make them look good and they just get the smelly end of the stick.

I know this is a pretty broad generalization, but it is, from my experience, the way things are going. It frost's me that these upper level executives can screw up consistently walk away fat and happy while the people who do the work just get tossed to the curb.

I'm not playin' that game again. My suggestion to people who are "still in the system" is to find a way to work toward local and self-sustainable communities.

[ooglymoogly]

3. You can bet the new bancrupcy laws do not touch any of their personal

assets where the real money has already been siphoned off.

[Zenlitened]

4. Ah, tax cuts. The solution to -- and cause of -- all life's problems.

[Pale Blue Dot]

6. Something tells me that we'll be going a lot further back than 2003 very soon. nt

[stillcool]

8. I don't know much about..

corporate bankruptcies. I think of Dresser, Bechtel, Haliburton, KBR, and God knows what other corporations are tied under that umbrella and how easy it is to shed one or 'restructure', and aside for massive layoffs, what difference does it make?