Sharks On Attack After One Bad Bet

摘要

Bankruptcies are never pleasant, but when financial engineers blow up otherwise profitable companies, the aftermath can be especially ugly. Consider the travails of SemGroup, an Oklahoma oil-and-gas service outfit that abruptly went bust last summer. With oil near-ing $147 a barrel, SemGroup's trading unit made an enormous bet that prices would fall. It was the right call-but a few weeks early. Unable to cover $2.4 billion in trading losses, SemGroup filed for Chapter 11 protection on July 22, the second-biggest bankruptcy of a nonfinancial company in 2008. Now SemGroup finds itself in arnbattle over its remaining businesses, many of which are still profitable. On one side is SemGroup's management, which needs to pay off creditors but is struggling to sell assets during the worst recession in decades. On the other side is New York supermarket magnate John A. Catsimatidis, who is using tough tactics to buy those SemGroup assets on the cheap.