Wednesday, February 11, 2009
News Homer Simpson's worst nightmare
Posted by Mara Shalhoup on Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 9:46 PM
Among the 15 companies that U.S. News & World Report projects might not survive 2009: Six Flags, Loehmann's and — gasp! — Krispy Kreme.
According to the story:
Krispy Kreme. (KKD; about 4,000 employees; stock down 50%). The donuts might be good, but Krispy Kreme overestimated Americans' appetite - and that's saying something. This chain overexpanded during the donut heyday of the 1990s - taking on a lot of debt - and now requires high volumes to meet expenses and interest payments. The company has cut costs and closed underperforming stores, but still hasn't earned an operating profit in three years. And now that consumers are cutting back on everything, such improvements may fail to offset top-line declines, leading Krispy Kreme to seek some kind of relief from lenders over the next year.
Just one question. WTF is "the donut heyday of the 1990s"?
Comments (3)
Showing 1-3 of 3
like
dislike
Sure, the 1990s Doughnut Boom, a superpowered sweet tooth coinciding with America's crush on Detroit heavy-hitting super officer Robocop. Who could forget? I don't remember that. I do remember newspapers, especially community papers, piddling any time a Krispy Kreme or Dunkin' Donut opened in town, maybe in the late 1990s, early 2000s. A DD opened in 2003 in the podunk burg where I started on cops. The manager would come around weekly, often with two dozen doughnuts, sweet talking our publisher into coverage. AJR covered papers' doughnut frenzy in 2003. http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=3430
Latest in Fresh Loaf
-
Town hall meeting on Ashford, er, Brookhaven… whatever 2
Someone has proposed turning DeKalb County into one big fat city
-
Ringling Bros. Circus kicks off tonight, but there's an elephant in the room 6
Or, tent, I suppose
-
Blogging today: Lines get fuzzier at AJC and elsewhere 10
New AJC blog blurs line between editorial and marketing
- More »
Author Archives
-
Warren Ullom: Death, drugs and rock 'n' roll, Part I 57
A talented musician. A beautiful woman. A fatal cocktail of heroin and cocaine.
-
Death, drugs and rock 'n' roll, Part II 78
Warren Ullom: A talented musician's recovery, incarceration and swan song
-
A goodbye, without regrets 8
Ironically, CL's able staff makes it easier to leave without worries
- More »
