Welcome To The Lucrative World Of Retail Bankruptcy
In August 2019, a group of small creditors made an appeal to the court overseeing Sears’ Holdings’ bankruptcy. This was a little less than a year after the company filed its long-anticipated Chapter 11 and several months after the remaining Sears stores were bundled and sold to former CEO Eddie Lampert and his hedge fund. At that point, Sears Holdings was essentially a corporate husk — a party to litigation and the holder of a massive legal bill. The fees that Sears Holdings owed its lawyers and advisers since filing for Chapter 11 had then reached nearly $170 million. Some creditors, which included some of the department stores’ suppliers, argued this likely left Sears Holdings administratively insolvent. They worried the company owed more in administrative claims — including both fees to its advisers as well as payments to vendors and other creditors — than it could possibly pay. Read more at Retail Dive.
