By: Nicole Nelson
Corporate and Personal bankruptcies have been on the rise during the past few years during the recession that has occurred. Out of the top 10 biggest bankruptcies of all time, fifty percent of these have occurred during the past two years.
Lehman Brothers tops this list with assets totaling 691 billion dollars. Lehman Brothers was once a very highly regarded investment firm on Wall Street. The filled for bankruptcy protection on Sept. 15th of last year.
Number two on this list is Washington Mutual, a once very powerful and large savings and loan bank. “WaMu” filed for bankruptcy after customers withdrew deposits totaling 16 billion dollars in only ten days. Washington Mutual’s assets totaled 327.9 billion dollars.
WorldCom, which is at number three in the top ten bankruptcies, is the only bankruptcy in the top four that has not occurred in the past two years. This bankruptcy occurred in July of 2002. WorldCom was at one point, the second largest telecom company. WorldCom was forced to file bankruptcy after being caught up in a 11 billion dollar accounting scandal. At the time of the bankruptcy filing, WorldCom’s assets totaled 103.9 billion dollars.
Although inflation does account for why older bankruptcies have been “out done” by other companies on this list, the recession itself did not help the bankruptcy situation.
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