To your following point, that’s not how bankruptcy works. Creditors can credit bid, creditors can hand together and push a company into involuntary bankruptcy (not common), creditors have a tremendous amount of remedies whereas shareholders do not. It would be a super long discussion really chopping this up, as to why, however look up recovery rates for different assets and/or market prices for various liquid (aka tradeable) assets after a company files for bankruptcy. You will find the higher up the capital structure the security (aka secured debt, followed by unsecured debt, followed by equity) the higher the price/recovery/expected value.

The link you sent was interesting though. Thanks for sharing.

1. https://www.uscourts.gov/statistics-reports/us-bankruptcy-co... 2. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sissonlawoffice.com/blog/fi...

Quote: “ Radio Shack made the news in 2017 when it filed for Chapter 22. That second Chapter 11 came only two years after it underwent a restructuring in 2015. Instead of opting to continue the business, its owner, General Wireless Operations, chose to liquidate all the remaining retail outlets.” ....seems pretty rare to me.