Supply-Chain Failures, Bankruptcies and Busts

The supply-chain business destroys companies in a few recurring ways, and the same lessons are relearned each cycle. A 99-year-old LTL carrier, Yellow, stopped operating on 30 Jul 2023 with a terminal network its rivals then bought for ~$1.88bn in the first auction round (reported); its liquidating plan was confirmed on 17 Nov 2025 after a court held it liable for billions in multi-employer pension withdrawal liability (reported). A venture-funded digital broker once valued in the billions, Convoy, shut on 19 Oct 2023; Flexport bought its technology on 1 Nov 2023. The world's seventh-largest container line, Hanjin Shipping, filed for receivership on 31 Aug 2016, leaving ships and cargo stranded outside ports that would not let them in. Toys "R" Us filed for Chapter 11 on 18 Sep 2017, twelve years after a ~$6.6bn leveraged buyout, and liquidated its US stores in 2018. Brazil's Americanas disclosed ~R$20bn of "accounting inconsistencies" in Jan 2023, much of it supplier-finance debt booked as payables; a Rio court closed its judicial recovery on 19 Oct 2026 (reported). Around them sit the busts of a capital cycle — TuSimple, Getir and Gorillas, Peloton's inventory glut, Forward Air's Omni acquisition, the decline of Li & Fung, Target's Canadian exit — and, in 2026, a fresh wave of freight distress (STG Logistics' Chapter 11 on 12 Jan 2026, reported). This section classifies the failures by the factor of the flow equation they turned on, tells each case briefly, and asks what each cost and who paid: employees, pension funds, creditors, suppliers, shippers and taxpayers. Two companion files tell the Yellow and Convoy cases in full and give a warning-signs checklist.