In a 2014 piece, I covered the likes of Dendreon and Walter Energy as bankruptcy candidates. We did a "how'd we do" piece here.
Now, we're offering some outside-the-box thoughts on the companies that could go bust this year. This years' bankruptcy column adds a number of companies to investors' "must avoid" list.
Here's an excerpt from the column:
But, there will also be second order effects of low oil. With oil have fallen so far, so fast, the fallout will travel beyond the obvious oil players. Consider this: There are a number of banks that have lent a lot of money to explorers who were looking to capitalize on the boom in oil shale. Oil and gas producing companies in the U.S. carried $130 billion in debt in 2010, but that number has ballooned by over 50% to $200 billion currently.
In total, there are five companies and a bonus prediction. Our prior article from 2014 called out U.S. Steel - the once largest company in the world - is still on track for a bust. This year's bonus pick is the $24bn market cap Japanese entertainment giant. But it won't be North Korea that puts it under.