Bidenomics: Red Lobsters suddenly close everywhere: update , don’t call it a comeback!

Big Shrimp gotta Big Shrimp. @tinman



Crustacean corruption scheme revealed in the wake of Red Lobster bankruptcy

On Sunday, May 19, 2024, the long-running seafood chain known as Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy. According to the filings, a primary cause of the company's financial struggles was the ongoing Endless Shrimp scheme—a seasonal offer which debuted some decades ago, but had recently been elevated to an evergreen menu item. For just $20, restaurantgoers could gorge on all the shrimp they wanted.

Such hubris would of course be their downfall. But perhaps not for the reasons you expect. From CNN:

Endless shrimp was a successful annual limited-time offer for Red Lobster for 20 years. But Red Lobster's latest major shareholder, Thai Union, a Bangkok-based canned seafood company, saw the promotion as a way to sell off the mountains of shrimp it was catching and turned it into an everyday item. (Thai Union became Red Lobster's largest investor in 2020.)

The change cost Red Lobster $11 million.​

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In other words, a shrimp supplier purchased a majority share of Red Lobster stock, then installed a Puppet CEO that was deep in the pockets of Big Shrimp, and forced that CEO to sign a irresponsible distribution deal with said shrimp supplier, in order to keep the shrimp supplier in business. As a result, Red Lobster was legally obligated to buy Way Too Much Shrimp (from a single supplier, who was also a shareholder), which the company in turn struggled to sell.

Bloomberg described the scandal quite succinctly:

1. You are in the business of producing and selling shrimp.
2. You expand vertically by acquiring a chain of seafood restaurants.
3. The restaurants start to struggle and are heavily indebted, and you worry that your equity investment is losing value and possibly worthless.
4. How to cut your losses?
5. Well, you have two relationships to the restaurant chain: You own the equity, and you also supply the shrimp.
6. Not much you can do with the equity: There's a lot of debt, the creditors rank ahead of you, and they are unlikely to let you take any cash out as a dividend.
7. But, as the equity owner, you also control the board of directors and get to appoint the chief executive officer.
8. The CEO decides how much shrimp to buy.
9. What if he decided to buy a lot of shrimp?
10. Then you'd make money on the shrimp, and extract at least some value out of your equity investment.

There is presumably some tipping point.
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And so this is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but a veritable crustacean ponzi scheme.​

 

they should have mentioned his tenure at Chiang's in the recorded segment as opposed to during biscuit banter

what is the "freshwater" qualifier, 25% of lobster sounds like some Hunt brothers type cornering

 

Trump won, people will have more money for red lobster... Ukraine and illegal immigrants will have less money for red lobster...

 

false attribulation by Tin Foil, again

Red Lobter's troubles are attributable to its “Endless Crab” promotion, which started in 2003, when W was POTUS. Guest count began to fall in 2019, a year before Trump was fired by the American voters

in Aug 2024, the struggling Red Lobster hired this immigrant from what Trump calls a S Hole country to turnaround the floundering restaurant chain.

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unlike Elon Musk, Damola Adamolekun started life in the US as a legal resident in Illinois,

The Harvard MBA was the Chief Strategist at PF Chang restau, he navigated the company---generating impressive gains in sales and profitability--through Covid-19 pandemic challenges

 

In cali there will always be endless shrimp because the thugs can just break in and steal everything...

 

I'm surprised red lobster ever survived in Houston all those years with all the seafood restaurant competition

 

I feel the same about Olive Garden up here in NY.
You eat at Sal's Italian hole in the wall.
I always said the sketchier the place the better the Mexican food when I was still in Texas.

 

I had thanksgiving dinner at the Green Hut Cafe in Uvalde once. it was....not good.

more like Green Gut...

 

Do they love 2 Chainz?