Bankruptcy
Fleming Companies announced in April 2003 that it had filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The company's fortunes had suffered considerably over the previous two years as the result of an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission into questionable business and accounting practices. Fleming had also faced a class-action lawsuit from its shareholders over the validity of its public statements, ended its relationship with its largest customer, Kmart, and saw its stock price drop to less than one dollar per share. Peter S. Willmott, a member of the company's board of directors, was appointed to lead Fleming through reorganization.
The plan Willmott adopted provided for the reorganization of Fleming's debtors around Core-Mark, a wholesale distribution company founded in 1888 and acquired by Fleming in June 2002. Fleming's other assets and liabilities were transferred to two special-purpose trusts, to be liquidated. All outstanding common stock in Fleming was canceled.
Famous quotes containing the word bankruptcy:
“You must get your living by loving. But as it is said of the merchants that ninety-seven in a hundred fail, so the life of men generally, tried by this standard, is a failure, and bankruptcy may be surely prophesied.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The heritage of the American Revolution is forgotten, and the American government, for better and for worse, has entered into the heritage of Europe as though it were its patrimony—unaware, alas, of the fact that Europe’s declining power was preceded and accompanied by political bankruptcy, the bankruptcy of the nation-state and its concept of sovereignty.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy—the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)