by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
When a PE firm is through strip-mining a company.
Sports Authority, which had skipped a $20-million interest payment in January while trying to arm-twist subordinated bondholders into accepting a haircut, and which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Wednesday, isn’t the only retailer in the US that was taken over by private equity firms before the Financial Crisis.
The list is long: Neiman Marcus, Albertsons, Safeway, J. Crew Group, 99 Cents Only Stores, Bon-Ton Stores, Claire Stores, the Container Store…. And they all have problems.