Why American Apparel May Go Bankrupt

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

American Apparel (NYSE: APP), already hammered by the dismissal of CEO and founder Dov Charney, may not meet the covenants of key loans which the retailer likely needs to keep maintain operations, at least as a public company. Lenders could support ongoing operations, but this could happen under a pre-packaged bankruptcy.

American Apparel owes Lion Capital $10 million, and $50 million to Capital One. Lion Capital can accelerate its loan if the retailer does not make immediate payment on a portion of it. American Apparel’s only option may be to raise money through a issuance of new stock. Demand my be light. American Apparel’s second largest shareholder, FiveT Capital, recently sold most of its shares. Even if the markets could absorb a share sale, it is too late to put such a transaction together.

Another factor in the company’s future as a public company is that Charney has pledged his voting rights on shares bought on his behalf by Standard General. This means a tug of war between Standard General and firms which hold debt for the future of the American Apparel is likely

The American Apparel share have recently traded as if the company might enter Chapter 11. They sold for only $.53 last month, down from $2 just a year ago.

Creditors often want to take control of a company so that they can enjoy any success in the future. One of the best ways to do that is to push the value of common shares to zero, and remove any benefit of equity ownership. For American Apparel that path becomes more likely by the day.

 

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Featured Reads

Our top personal finance-related articles today. Your wallet will thank you later.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618