Instant Pot maker seeks bankruptcy protection - NPR

kurosawaa@lemmy.world to World News@beehaw.org – 13 points –
npr.org

Pretty shocked to see this with how ubiquitous they've seemed these last few years. Of all the recent kitchen gadgets this is one of the few that felt genuinely useful to me.

16

You are viewing a single comment

Am I reading this right?

The maker of Pyrex glassware and Instant Pot has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection ... brands also include Corelle, Snapware, CorningWare, Visions and Chicago Cutlery, ...

Pyrex seems like a way bigger deal than instant pot, and those others are also well-known. Is this just a restructuring thing where they will screw creditors and then continue on? Or they will sell off the brand names to some new companies that may or may not keep the same quality?

Only speculating but I think this is a symptom of late stage capitalism. Companies are staking enormous risk on leveraged finances to achieve impossible stock prices. And if they miss, they're done. They collapse and get rolled into giant multinationals to funnel even more money to the top.

From another article:

The Instant Pot, for its part, is not dead. Cornell Capital has brought in a restructuring crew, and the brand’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing allows it to continue doing business while it seeks relief from its debts.

So likely, we'll see a bit of divestment, a shift of focus? I dunno, I'm just regular people, I don't get to restructure and cancel my debts in a way that isn't personally destructive.

Corning seems like a way bigger deal than Pyrex too… between them and AnchorHawking they essentially own the industrial glassware industry. Pyrex is only a small part of that; it also spans things like smartphone screens and lab equipment.

That said, Corning has bought a lot of companies of questionable quality in the last decade; sounds like now they’re being forced to divest some of those properties.