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SpicyLemonZestyesterday at 7:40 AM2 repliesview on HN

The process you're describing is hardly unheard of. The problem is that a large corporation's assets include things like employees, office buildings, supplier contracts, etc, which generally aren't valuable except in the context of the business unit they operate within. So if you want to maximize recovery, you have to keep critical business units intact, which often means that large parts of the business survive in all but name.

Purdue Pharma is a recent instructive case. The marketing folks did some terrible stuff, but it would be pretty rough on victims, employees, and patients who need pain meds to respond by tearing down Purdue's factories and auctioning off the contents. So the bankruptcy plan calls for keeping the factories running, transferring them to a new company called Knoa, which will be owned by a trust that's dedicated to managing the opioid crisis. Isn't Knoa just Purdue wearing a new hat? Kinda, sure, but there's no better alternative.


Replies

kelseyfrogyesterday at 7:49 AM

What if you don't want to maximize recovery?

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mschuster91yesterday at 9:07 AM

> So if you want to maximize recovery, you have to keep critical business units intact, which often means that large parts of the business survive in all but name.

Easy solution: fire (and imprison) the executives, sell off the entire company, leave the owners/investors with nothing.

That sets a proper incentive for shareholders to not send yes-men or people with a dozen or more other well-paid low-effort board memberships into corporate boards but people actually willing and capable of controlling the executive.

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