[nwenzel]

General Motors. Several airlines. You’re describing bankruptcy protection. It means the debt holders will agree to pennies on the dollar or possibly even to forgive the debt but take over the equity wiping out the common shareholders. Companies can file for bankruptcy protection or debt holders can effectively force companies into bankruptcy if they default on their debt payments.

[jklein11]

I’m not sure GM fits the bill. It looks like their operating cash flow was negative in 2008.(1)

[1] https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content...

[texasbigdata]

Let's be specific: chapter 11 (reorganization) and chapter 7 (liquidation) are completely different.