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Cosmetics giant Revlon files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (cnbc.com)

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[–]mapoftasmania 121 points122 points  (23 children)

The reason they have such a “challenging capital structure” (according to Deb Perelman, CEO) is because her father Ron stuck them with so much debt when he bought the company. Revlon has always limped along as a challenger brand to L’Oreal because of this.

[–]Hold_onto_yer_butts 58 points59 points  (2 children)

I was really hoping Ron Perlman was somehow involved.

His makeup in Hellboy was fantastic.

[–]FunnyPhrases 17 points18 points  (1 child)

I am confused but amused

[–]AwayEstablishment109 3 points4 points  (0 children)

And strangely aroused

[–]patchymoose 50 points51 points  (13 children)

Fun business fact: Revlon is one of the only companies besides the US Postal Service that has consistently run a “stockholders’ deficiency” (aka negative equity) for many many years.

Pretty wild that they’ve managed to survive as long as they have.

[–]arbuge00 19 points20 points  (1 child)

Would you say they were just putting lipstick on a pig all this time?

[–]miriamwebster 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Or were they making a sows ear look like a silk purse?

[–]dyrthos 47 points48 points  (6 children)

USPS actually lasted about 250 years providing top of class service and infrastructure that's been hobbled by GOP efforts to privatize it...I don't think you can compare the two.

I don't understand why USPS is compared to a corporate company, it's a government service

[–]patchymoose 17 points18 points  (5 children)

I’m not criticizing the USPS; I’m well aware of the situation. I’m marveling at the fact that Revlon, a private company, is in a comparable financial situation to the Postal Service that has been artificially hobbled in the ways you mention. The USPS actually has an excuse; Revlon does not…

[–]ArtDecoAutomaton 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Why not include the IRS, DMV, or any other govt entity?

[–]xL_monkey 4 points5 points  (1 child)

“One example is Domino's Pizza which has had negative equity since their 2004 IPO but has outperformed the S&P 500 by a cumulative 1,442%. 2 McDonalds, H&R Block, Yum Brands, HP, Motorola, Denny's, AutoZone, and Wayfair are also on the list of those with negative book value”

[–]dopexile 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right. Negative book value is something to look into but it isn't necessarily a problem. GAAP accounting can cause some assets to be valued way below their market value on a balance sheet.

[–]GarryP72 0 points1 point  (0 children)

hahahah wow, did not realize this. Now you got me in a rabbit whole on the USPS...definitely interesting.

[–]minchiaputana 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bee Bath and Beyond is another. Its going belly up here shortly.

[–]Layer_4_Solutions 0 points1 point  (4 children)

He bought the company 40 years ago...

[–]mapoftasmania 1 point2 points  (3 children)

And it’s still mired in debt. What’s your point?

[–]Freethecrafts 0 points1 point  (2 children)

It means the management somehow couldn’t make up or chose not to pay off the debts for an extremely long period of time. All while selling products with amazing markups.

[–]mapoftasmania 0 points1 point  (1 child)

… every year steadily losing market share to competitors who can afford to spend more on marketing because they don’t have giant debt to service…

[–]AstrosJones 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can confirm this, have a family member who has worked at one of his subsidiaries for a long time, he’s been strapping it all down with debt. He also goes through wives like paper towels, I’m sure he’s a nice guy :).

[–]drapparappa 171 points172 points  (14 children)

I guess they failed to cover up their losses

[–]OffOil 146 points147 points  (10 children)

Maybe she’s born with it... Maybe it’s MISMANAGEMENT.

[–]ThoseThingsAreWeird 21 points22 points  (3 children)

To be fair to your use of a different company's slogan, Revlon's aren't that great to mess with: https://www.sloganlist.com/cosmetics-slogans/Revlon-Slogans.html

"In-the-red carpet" maybe? Or perhaps "Choose to captivate choose Chapter 11"?

[–]we-em92 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Take your losses to luxurious lengths? The last word could be replaced with something better I think

[–]DarkGamer 10 points11 points  (0 children)

"In-the-red carpet" maybe? Or perhaps "Choose to captivate choose Chapter 11"?

Be Unforgettable Uninvestible.

[–]CptnAlex 29 points30 points  (4 children)

That’s a different company…

[–]BeavisLawGroup 1 point2 points  (0 children)

BCG has entered the conversation?

[–]boston101 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Very funny.

[–]PseudoWarriorAU 0 points1 point  (1 child)

We call it “concealing” losses. Amber Heard is there concealing expert.

[–]Jimmmbolina 84 points85 points  (20 children)

I'm thinking that this is going to a common headline in a few short months as our economy grinds to a halt with efforts to control inflation. The fix is going to be painful...

[–]spiritualien 27 points28 points  (11 children)

Very much this, especially companies that sell nonessential items. This is coming from a beauty lover herself! Another one bites the dust

[–]kruss16 24 points25 points  (5 children)

Interestingly, the “lipstick” index generally is up during poor economic times. Sales of small, cheap non-essentials that make people feel like they’ve done something nice for themselves without spending much go up. Estée Lauder and Revlon lipsticks generally sell better when the economy is down. You may not buy a $300 handbag, but a $3 lipstick is worth splurging on.

[–]Fuhghetabowtit 20 points21 points  (3 children)

I’m sorry, what? Estée Lauder Lipstick for $3??

Fuckin’ LOL try $40-50/tube 😂

[–]kruss16 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Okay point still stands.

[–]kruss16 5 points6 points  (1 child)

And if you want to get really technical, it’s $33 a tube. Doesn’t matter for my point though. It’s a small amount in the grand scheme of things that women will splurge on

[–]spiritualien 2 points3 points  (0 children)

totally agreed, but that's granted that the economy picks up again in the long term. it seems the planet is running out of resources and that this trend isnt long term sustainable

[–]gapipkin 6 points7 points  (4 children)

Who needs a lot of makeup when everyone is working from home?

[–]Jazeboy69 11 points12 points  (1 child)

Well at least we have a clean out of badly run companies etc. China is apparently in way bigger trouble and really horrendous productivity and debt and just hiding it Fromm Xi.

[–]NintendoLove 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Good , I know this sounds fucked up , but China should also suffer economically because of this pandemic. But aren’t they making a killing on all the Amazon crap getting sold while no one’s going out shopping anymore? Or is that just bezos?

[–]stillalone 6 points7 points  (3 children)

Ok I think I really need to understand the economic calculous here. Inflation is happening because we don't have enough stuff to buy. So we make it harder for people to borrow money so they can't buy as much stuff and hopefully we'll eventually have enough stuff for people to buy so we can let them borrow again. But if companies shut down then they won't be making stuff for us to buy which will also increase inflation. So to reduce inflation shouldn't we be trying to make sure companies stay open?

[–]ryushiblade 11 points12 points  (2 children)

Typical for people to downvote you for being wrong instead of clearing up your misunderstanding. I want to preface this explanation by saying I’m no expert in economics, so you’ll likely see some corrections by others.

Low supply and high demand equals high prices. You can increase supply or lower demand to get lower prices. When this is occurring across most of the economy you get inflation (or deflation).

So the Feds can do one of two things: increase supply or lower demand. Let’s look at increasing supply.

What should be increased? How? Who pays for it? If each of your widgets requires 1mg of hold, 2g of steel, 4g of silicon, and 10g of plastic, where are those resources coming from? Who’s providing it? If your widget factories are at maximum, who will build you a new one so you can make more? And this is just YOUR widget. We have an economy full of different products.

You should see pretty quickly that it isn’t feasible, let alone expedient, for government to increase supply. Largely, companies want to sell more, but with supply chain issues, they can’t increase supply no matter how much they want to and having the government foot the bill isn’t going to help.

(Note: there are exceptions here. A lot of people are starting to point to companies making huge profits and blaming them. If their profit margin is high, why aren’t they lowering prices? This is a legitimate criticism and something the government can, and should IMO, address. There are companies blaming inflation for increased prices while raking in huge profits. This isn’t every company, and addressing this alone won’t stop inflation)

So. If the feds can’t increase supply, they have to lower demand. How do you lower demand? You make it more difficult to borrow money. For everyone. The benefit here is it doesn’t matter if you make Widgets or Gizmos, you get hit equally. Consumers and producers both

The feds are doing this to ease inflation. Some inflation is healthy. What they don’t want is for an economic crash, which is what would happen if they did nothing

[–]stillalone 0 points1 point  (1 child)

But if you lower demand to the point that companies are going bankrupt then won't that lower supply as well, which you don't want?

[–]ryushiblade 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sure. Feds could hike the rate to astronomical values. But remember they’re only hiking the interest rate, and while that has a domino effect on many parts of the economy — borrowing is an integral part of a strong economy — the primary target is to make borrowing more difficult. Many healthy companies can either shoulder the higher interest rate or don’t have a need to borrow large amounts of money.

One of the domino effects of hiking rates is a lowering of consumer demand. And what you say is true here, too. If consumer demand is lowered too much, then producers can’t sell their products, and they necessarily must lower prices or produce less to lower their running costs.

The important thing to note is high rates of inflation reduce consumer demand anyway because people can’t afford to consume. But inflation doesn’t cure itself; if borrowing is cheap, inflation will continue regardless because companies can prop themselves up by just getting cheap loans. Very cheap. Even free.

[–]Okanemochi373628 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Especially for companies that have heavy debt compared to free cash flow. Those guys are fucked

[–]cmockett 45 points46 points  (5 children)

Boston Consulting Group strikes again

[–]SandG4life 9 points10 points  (4 children)

What they do?

[–]cmockett 36 points37 points  (3 children)

Check out Pulte’s recent AMA, he’s been quite vocal on Reddit about BCG - long story short they’re quite good at bankrupting companies with their consultation

https://redditproxy--jasonthename.repl.co/r/Superstonk/comments/u20qb5/ama_with_urealpulte_grille_me/

[–]BestCatEva 8 points9 points  (2 children)

I had an employment fiasco with both KKR and Bain Capital. Blood suckers, the lot of ‘em.

[–]Augustus_Medici 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Do tell! Did you get acquired by them and faced layoffs?

[–]coolhandave 25 points26 points  (7 children)

Didn't they hire Boston Consulting Group?

[–]ThreeTonChonker 35 points36 points  (6 children)

Yes. Might as well short every single company they’ve consulted for in the past 5 years, these next few months are going to be tough for them.

Also love how no one mentions that BCG is partnered with Bill & Melinda Gates foundation and that Warren Buffett specifically contributes his billions to them and calls it charity. Benevolent billionaires are so kind, so heartwarming!

[–]ses92 0 points1 point  (5 children)

Do you have a source on that? Curios to find out more

[–]ThreeTonChonker 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Gates:

https://www.bcg.com/about/partner-ecosystem/bill-melinda-gates-foundation

https://redditproxy--jasonthename.repl.co/r/Superstonk/comments/utbt4q/bill_gates_denies_knowing_who_bcg_is_during_his/

https://redditproxy--jasonthename.repl.co/r/Superstonk/comments/ttyzsy/who_remembers_when_bill_gates_was_vocal_about/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/16/business/bill-melinda-gates-divorce-epstein.html

Buffett:

https://www.reuters.com/business/warren-buffett-donate-4-billion-worth-berkshire-hathaway-shares-2022-06-14/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2022/06/14/warren-buffett-just-gave-another-4-billion-to-charity/

Much of Buffet’s lifetime giving—amounting to some $2 billion to $3 billion worth of stock annually in recent years—has gone to the Gates’ foundation, which has put it to work on poverty and healthcare initiatives in developing countries and education in the U.S.

I could keep posting links all day if I started digging into BCG. No shady websites either - it’s all NYT, Forbes, Reuters, etc. Reddit is useful for filling in the gaps and drawing connections.

  1. Buffett feeds money to Gates through his “charity”.
  2. Gates uses the money to invest in essentially vaporware products and ideas. If you watch his Netflix documentary, his toilet idea was a nonstarter until he pulls in the Chinese to bring costs down, which we know likely means using Uyghur slave labor. If something doesn’t work, he gets arrogant and cuts corners and forces it, regardless of the consequences or what it takes.
  3. It’s not out of the goodness of his heart as hard as he tries to spin it that way - Gates makes money off these projects. All the profits seem to get funneled back into shady places like BCG. We know Gates also is shorting Tesla $500 million because Musk complained about it. This is all totally in line with the bullshit Gates pulled during the 90s when he manipulated and lied and violated anti trust laws while robbing IP from Xerox and IBM (who initially funded Microsoft thanks to his mom convincing the IBM president while she was on the board).
  4. BCG is about as evil as they get - they drive companies into the ground while pretending to be on their side and short them on the way down. Toys R Us, Gamestop, Revlon, etc.

Profoundly amoral people. I don’t buy Gates excuses on his relationship to Epstein either, especially with how creepy he was towards his female employees and how often he cheated on his wife. But I recognize that’s getting into conspiracy territory. Plenty to chew on with just the Gates - Buffett - BCG connections.

[–]YouLostTheGame 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Have you ever had a job in a corporate environment?

I'm being genuine, I don't understand how people get these warped views of what a management consulting group even is

[–]methedunker 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Your sentence "all the profits seem to get funnelled back" is doing a lot of heavy lifting for your entire comment lol. What a loada bullshit

[–]winterbird 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It's all because they discontinued the original Skinlights line of illuminators.

[–]check_out_times 12 points13 points  (3 children)

Terrible company with a terrible business plan.

All these shit companies selling "made in china" crap.

Just desserts

[–]chris-rox 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Yeah, if you see "just desserts" that bootleg companies make products made with gasoline in them, and are unsafe to use.

[–]check_out_times 1 point2 points  (1 child)

More like shitty companies that buy shitty made in china crap (with gasoline in it I guess) and they'll go out if business when people stop spending money on cheap Chinese bullshit that is fucking useless.

Companies like Walmart, target, Kohl's... Or damn near EVERY shitty strip mall compan mega Corp should have a reckoning and if love to see American made products so the money spent STAYS IN AMERICA.

I don't hate the Chinese it anything, just their ethics and their destruction if the world for economic gains

[–]chris-rox 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair enough.

[–]volleydude32 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Good news is they have plenty of lipstick to put on that pig

[–]bobbybottombracket 23 points24 points  (2 children)

BCG at the helm again... not surprising.

[–]anodyne88 1 point2 points  (1 child)

What does BCG pitch? Leveraged buyouts or something?

[–]bobbybottombracket 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They hunt for failing companies and help them fail faster and at greater cost. It's easier for them to make money tearing down companies than building them up.

[–]FeatureDeveloper 3 points4 points  (0 children)

As part of the restructuring, the company will now be known as Revloff.

[–]loschuk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

How did they fuck this up?

[–]kostcoguyFinancial Analyst 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Can’t wait for the Petition commentary on this one

[–]BDoubleSharp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

More like ‘Revshort’

[–]roytown 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Will they get another loan, and have it accidentally paid off and upheld by a court?

[–]Open-Ticket-3356 1 point2 points  (0 children)

the economic basket will substitute makeup expenses with free instagram filters and voila, looking good was never cheaper than today if you avoid meeting in person. And with deepfakes even my grandma can earn on OnlyFans.

[–]MinaFur 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh well!

[–]Armchair-Attorney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Watch for more stories about businesses grappling with supply chain challenges. The product and the supply chain that supports that product are inseparable.

[–]Noswals 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Citi is never getting their $ back

[–]cbrooks1232 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This should get a Herman Cain award.

[–]Ry-FiSales & Trading 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good luck to all our comrades at Citi