Basically, the company had to pay for its own buyout when private equity firms KKL, Vornado, and Bain bought the company for $6.6 billion, mostly with loans.
Because the company then had to pay off those extreme loans, they were forced to sell off their assets and property, which they leased back from the very private equity firms that now owned them.
The same thing happened more recently with Red Lobster and JoAnn Fabrics.
Bear with me for a bit, because i don’t understand these schemes.
How would the sellers get more money from this scheme? Isn’t liquidating company assets are basically what the buyers (the private equity firms) did anyway?
How does the insurance companies keep falling for these? This has happened several times, and insurance companies aren’t known for being charitable.
It keeps working because the insurance/bank systems are evaluating things on the merit of the lender and their business plan. Anyone can make a decent business plan that will pass muster if you fiddle with it long enough. And the individual company/organisation that is defaulting on these are a dime-a-dozen. Since the failure of the loan goes down with the ship (and company), even if the borrower’s ask for more money tomorrow, as long as the request is coming from a different company/organization, the banks evaluate based on the organisation that is requesting the loan, not the leadership’s failed previous attempts from other businesses.
Incorporated companies have limited liability from their owners. While the owners operate as agents of the business, ultimately the business itself is liable for their decisions. They don’t bear any responsibility. So their actions are based on what will get them, personally, the most value extracted from the business, not based on what’s good for the long-term success of the company itself.