Just six months after Blockbuster made its ridiculous offer to
buyout Circuit City for 1.35 billion, now Circuit City is filing
for bankrupcy.
First off, what does this tell you about Blockbuster's
management. Everyone involved, including Carl Icahn, now have
egg in their face. Although they ultimately did not pull the
trigger on the buyout, it was still the journalists, analysts,
stockholders and observers who altogether gasped at that news
before Blockbuster's management blinked.
Meanwhile, while one company's reputation falls, another one
rises. Best Buy is the big winner in all this. Circuit
City was already closing many stores. Now they will have to
close more or sell out giving up further market share to Best Buy,
the undisputed champion of this space. Who are the
losers? The shareholders, of course.
One of the biggest shareholders is Los Angeles based First
Pacific Advisors, LLC with over twelve million shares according to
their latest filing. Circuit City's creditors are also in
trouble with all this and will likely have to be more conservative
with future deals.
The economy is in a downward spiral and this is moreso a
reminder that the troubled players are in the biggest
trouble. Circuit City's troubles should have become apparent
to all of us when they rejected Blockbuster's bid, knowing full
well that when they opened up their books for inspection, what they
would have revealed was a disaster waiting to happen. Yet,
shareholders hung on.
In this scary market, it's time to pay close attention!
Circuit City did not necessarily reject the bid because it was too
low. They rejected it because they did not believe
Blockbuster would follow through. And we should have figured
out why. Now we know why.