RadioShack To Kodak; These Companies Fell From Grace The Hardest

RadioShack is preparing for its second bankruptcy restructuring in two years as the once-dominant electronics retailer continues its fall from grace. RadioShack currently operates about 1,700 stores, down 75 percent from its peak market presence back in the late 1990s. The company has already begun closing another 200 stores and firing employees.

RadioShack is one of the most visible names to fall victim to competition from Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN and the digital age. Here are several other corporate giants that have also fallen from grace.

Sears Holdings Corp SHLD

The company underwent another round of debt restructuring just months ago, but it may simply be delaying the inevitable at this point. Sears’ market cap peaked at around $30 billion back in 2007, but now it stands at only $768 million.

Eastman Kodak Company Common New KODK

Americans under a certain age mostly know cameras as a feature on a phone rather than a device in itself. Kodak’s market cap peaked at $31 billion back in the 1990s. Today the company is valued at around $606 million.

Blockbuster Inc

Although it seemed incomprehensible just 20 years ago, the DVD rental model has officially become a relic of the past. The idea of flashing a Blockbuster card to rent a movie like a bar patron shows ID to buy a beer is totally foreign to the Netflix, Inc. NFLX generation.

Blockbuster’s market cap peaked at $5 billion in 2002. The last of the Blockbuster assets were sold to DISH Network Corp DISH in 2011 and the brand is now mostly retired.

BlackBerry Ltd BBRY

Of all the names included on this list, BlackBerry may be the most surprising. In 2008, BlackBerry’s market cap approached $80 billion and the company seemed poised in the middle of the high-growth smartphone market. Unfortunately, failure to innovate and the rise of the Apple Inc AAPL iPhone quickly made BlackBerry devices obsolete. Today, BlackBerry continues its rebranding efforts, but the company’s market cap has dipped to only $3.5 billion.

Circuit City

At its peak, Circuit City was one of the largest electronics retailers in the world. The company’s peak market cap in 2000 was as high as $6.7 billion. By 2009, the company was completely liquidated.

WorldCom

For some reason, the financial world seems to remember the Enron scandal of the same era more vividly than WorldCom. While Enron’s market cap peaked at around $70 billion, WorldCom’s collapse was unparalleled in both its size and its speed. After logging a peak market cap of $186 in 1999, the company’s accounting scandal made shares of stock completely worthless by 2002.

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