Thursday, August 26, 2010

Buh-Bye Blockbuster!

LA Times Company Town is reporting that Blockbuster is preparing for a mid-September bankruptcy. 


"Executives from Blockbuster and its senior debt holders last week held meetings with the six major movie studios to discuss their intention to enter a “pre-planned” bankruptcy in mid-September, said several people familiar with the situation who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of ongoing talks.
Blockbuster is hoping to use its time in Chapter 11 to restructure a crippling debt load of nearly $1 billion and escape leases on 500 or more of it 3,425 stores in the U.S. Maintaining the support of Hollywood's film studios during the process will be critical so that Blockbuster can continue to rely upon an uninterrupted supply of new DVDs.
Blockbuster has lost a total of $1.1 billion since the beginning of 2008 and has been severely hamstrung in efforts to grow its business due to interest payments on $920 million in debt. Earlier this month the company announced that most of its debt holders had agreed to a forbearance on interest payments until Sept. 30, during which time it would attempt a recapitalization."

Not exactly sure what to say about this except that it's an end to an era.

3 comments:

Caine said...

Didn't you get the memo? It's redbox now a days dadio... :)

Deka Black said...

Holy... what a debt!

Eric Lytle said...

I love that the ad right underneath this post is an add for Netflix.