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Reuters Says Borders Books May File Bankruptcy

By Joseph McDaniel, Esq.

See, I talk to folks (and businesses) all day who agonize over the decision to file a bankruptcy.

It's a very different deal in the mega-corporate dimension, where I've spent only limited time.

For instance, what is the most upbeat possible way to say that a company in a Chapter 11 is going to boink bunches of creditors, and pay something to some other creditors to bribe them for their vote in favor of the Chapter 11 Plan?

Well, this would get my vote for best expression of "get ready and brace yourself; your ox is getting gored next!"

"Bankruptcy is a wonderful tool for taking the majority of interests and implementing a plan that may be over the objections of a minority of interests," said Michael Epstein, a managing partner at restructuring advisory firm CRG Partners who is not involved in the situation.

Did everybody else appreciate that elegant phrase as much as I did? 

A highly-regarded, highly-experienced, heavily-credentialed local bankruptcy expert who was a Big Dog when I was a Chihuahua said it best, I think, when he said, "Everything depends on whose ox is getting gored." 

Another brilliant Arizona Bankruptcy Expert told me that bankruptcy law wasn't complex, and that all I needed to remember was this phase: "Do ya want somethin', or do ya want nothin'? It's all the same to me; I already got paid."

To be fair, I've never tried using that specific phrase, because it seemed a little confrontational for my taste. 


When I have a difficult bundle of creditors to deal with, I get doughnuts and a room with little ventilation, and decaf (so they can't stay perky when the insulin hits 'em), and carefully explain that my plan results in a higher payout than the alternatives. 


And since it's the truth, and since I'm the World's Most Boring Human Being, their anger often dissipates and leaves them capable of using a pocket calculator to check my numbers, and then we have a deal! 


Except when we don't. Which is why Plan "B" is always important. And "C". And...you get the idea.


Or as a business and bankruptcy genius of my acquaintance has often said, "No plan survives the first seven seconds of contact with the opposition." 

 

Full post as published by Arizona Bankruptcy Attorney Blog on January 31, 2011 (boomark / email).