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Hello and welcome. You are listening to Patrick Boyle on Finance, a podcast exploring

ideas from quantitative finance, examining events occurring

in markets right now and financial history to see what lessons can be taken away, including

interviews with some of the most interesting people in the world of finance. To learn more

about the podcast, visit Onfinance.org.

Probably the biggest downside to being a privately owned company is that if everything goes wrong, you don't get to fall back on becoming a meme stock.

The first video I made on a bankruptcy was about Guitar Center, which went bankrupt just a few months before the GameStop short squeeze began, which led to the whole meme stock craze in 2021.

I remember thinking back then that Guitar Center would have made a much better meme stock than GameStop or AMC, simply because guitars and musical instruments are obviously

cool, unlike video games and movie theatres, but Guitar Centre was owned by private equity

and so went through a fairly standard bankruptcy proceeding. Red Lobster, the American

Fast Casual Seafood Chain, filed for bankruptcy this Monday.

And even though we're seeing a bit of a meme stock revival right now, Red Lobster doesn't get to participate because it's privately owned by a seafood supplier, Thai Union.

The Bloomberg headline on Monday said,

Red Lobster chain goes bankrupt after unlimited shrimp deal.

And I think bankrupting yourself essentially with a storyline from the Simpsons is the

most meme stock thing that you can do.

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