Matt Levine, Columnist

Retail Bankruptcy and Insider Trading

Also Bridgewater, Venezuela, fake cryptocurrencies and hoodies.

September 20, 2017 at 1:17 PM UTC

Matt Levine is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former investment banker at Goldman Sachs, he was a mergers and acquisitions lawyer at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; a clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit; and an editor of Dealbreaker.

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Toys 'R' Us.

One thing to say about Toys "R" Us Inc.'s bankruptcy filing yesterday is that Toys "R" Us's business is basically fine. It had $460 million of GAAP operating income last year, up from the year before; its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization -- the company's preferred metric -- was $792 million. Like all retailers, Toys "R" Us faces a tough environment and competition from Amazon and Wal-Mart, but that's not what brought it to bankruptcy.