Whoops!
reportonbusiness.com: Quebecor World seeks bankruptcy protection
Quebecor World Inc. filed Monday for creditor protection, telling a court hearing it will run out of cash within days, after failed attempts over the weekend to strike a compromise deal with its bankers.The struggling commercial printing giants application for protection under the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act was being heard in Quebec Superior Court.
“We are days from a total liquidity collapse,” Derrick Tay, a lawyer for Quebecor World told the court. If the company doesnt get the emergency debt financing it is seeking, it will run out of cash by Thursday, he said.
There goes the neighborhood. Seriously though, who would have thought this a few years ago?
January 21st, 2008 at 14:11 PM
Many would have thought this a few years ago. From 1997 onward the company has relied more on smoke and mirrors than the hard work that printing is. I had a 16 year career with Quebecor and participated in the growth from nothing in the late 80’s to the top of the mountain in 1999.
There is a reason why they have had so many CEO’s in the past 10 years - the owners want to hear only what they want to hear. Competence is not rewarded, and all of those who engineered the phenomenon that once was Quebecor Printing have long since left the building (many voluntarily).
There will indoubtedly be more smoke an mirrors still to come, possibly a bailout by Quebec institutional investors to save their crown jewel, but the jig is up. Fundamentally Quebecor World is a substandard printing company. They don’t know how to grow business nor do they know how to run their facilities. All they know is debt financing, selling off assets and manipulating the balance sheets. The chickens have come home to roost.