Largest coal company goes BANKRUPT

[Lion Heart 15,041]

Peabody Energy, the world’s largest privately-owned coal company, announced Wednesday that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, following a significant downturn in the coal market that left the company saddled with debt.

Peabody, which is headquartered in Missouri, maintained that its mines and offices would remain open, and that its Australian holdings would not be included in the Chapter 11 filing. The company attributed its financial woes to “a dramatic drop in the price of metallurgical coal, weakness in the Chinese economy, overproduction of domestic shale gas and ongoing regulatory challenges.” These market forces have made it difficult for Peabody to repay its debts after the company’s 2011 takeover of Australian rival Macarthur.

Peabody expects to stop trading company shares on the New York Stock Exchange — shares that have lost 99 percent of their value since their peak in 2008.

The bankruptcy declaration has drawn positive reactions from the environmental advocacy community. “Peabody Energy’s bankruptcy should serve as a wake-up call to anyone promising that coal’s glory days will return,” Sierra Club’s Mary Anne Hitt said in a statement. Coal’s contribution to climate change is significant, and the bankruptcy comes less than a year after an investigation undertaken by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman found that Peabody had been misleading its investors about the impact of climate change.

Peabody has been in business since the 1880s,

 

Full story: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/04/13/3768908/worlds-largest-coal-company-bankrupt/

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

Well this sort of thing is only beginning.