Credit Crunch Fuels 48-Hour Bankruptcy Rush With Seven Filings

  • Vice Media, Envision, Venator Materials among those filing
  • Wave is the busiest two-day period since at least 2008

Vice Media offices in Venice, California. 

Photographer: Mario Tama/Getty Images

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At least seven large companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in less than 48 hours, a breakneck pace of restructurings that included once-hot digital-broadcaster Vice Media LLC and KKR & Co.-backed Envision Healthcare Corp.

That’s the largest number of filings on record during a two-day period since at least 2008, according to Bloomberg-compiled data on companies with at least $50 million of liabilities. And it comes as two Federal Reserve officials signaled that they favor a pause in their aggressive monetary-tightening campaign amid the ongoing fallout in credit markets.