The North Carolina Bankruptcy Information Blog

It is hard to understand why companies that can make billions of dollars find themselves seeking the advantages of the United States bankruptcy system. The last couple of years has seen countless examples of such bankruptcy cases, many of which created new standards for corporate filings.

MGM Studios, a Golden Age of Hollywood production starlet founded in 1924, has started its final steps toward total emergence from its pre-packaged bankruptcy that was approved earlier this month. The studio is now substantially smaller with fewer employees and substantially less financial overhead.

At this point, the company only needs a formal court ruling to be “out of bankruptcy.”

Many of the company’s creditors decided to accept ownership stakes in exchange for the debt they were owed.…

There is no denying the power of association marketing. That is, the attachment, or association, of a brand to a particular public person or entity. We see it in sports, cars, alcohol, clothes, cell phones and just about any other sort of consumer you can imagine. And yes, credit cards have long used such tactics to lure consumers.

Enter the Kardashians.

Wait, who?

Don’t pretend you don’t know you they are. But, in a way, you’re right. For what on earth are these women famous?

Pardon the digression.

The Kardashian sisters, we’ll call them socialites, recently attached their name to a pre-paid debit card backed by University National Bank, called the Kardashian Prepaid MasterCard.…

He said he’d be back. He just didn’t know it would be as the result of a bankruptcy.

In a southern California bankruptcy court this week, a U.S. judge granted ownership of “The Terminator” movie franchise to a California-based hedge fund called Pacificor, LLC.

Halcyon Holding, the previous rights holder of the film series about an apocalyptic time traveling, hell-bent-on-assassination cyborg lost the right to assemble more killer robots last summer when it had to file for bankruptcy.

As we have discussed in other bankruptcy news posts, movie rights can be worth a lot of money if handled correctly. Some people have made generational fortunes by holding the rights to just a single Hollywood character.…

Recent bankruptcy news includes a headline about industry icon MGM filing a prepackaged bankruptcy, which, relative to the movie industry, may carry as much as impact as the General Motors and Chrysler filings had in Detroit.

However, operating with excessive debt is not a new concept in the film industry. In fact, it’s how most filmmakers get started. One has only to ask the nearest independent movie director how he’s funding his latest effort and your likely to hear the words “Visa,” “Mastercard” and “American Express.”

Today, access to the credit market is slowly changing the small film market. Just a couple of years ago, aspiring directors and producers would have little fear about maxing out their credit cards because of the prospect of a major studio discovering their unpolished cinematic gem and putting it on screens across the country.…