Скачать или смотреть $7.5 Billion Killed the Toy Store You Grew Up In

$470M in fees collected. $0 in severance paid. 33,000 jobs gone.

In 2005, three private equity firms bought the largest toy retailer in history for $6.6 billion — and loaded $5.3 billion of that debt onto the company itself.

For twelve years, Toys R Us paid $400 million a year in interest on a loan it took out to buy itself. The renovation budget became an interest payment. The technology budget became an advisory fee. The stores aged while the fees kept flowing.

If you have ever wondered what happened to Toys R Us, or why Toys R Us failed, this is the forensic story — how a leveraged buyout turned America's toy store into a debt instrument, and why liquidating 800 stores was more profitable for the owners than saving a single one.

CHAPTERS:
0:00 The Aisle Where Every Box Was Taller Than You
1:01 Seven Point Five Billion
2:24 Children's Bargain Town
3:55 The Supermarket for Toys
5:46 The Footprint That Made It a Target
8:17 The Same Structure With a Different Weapon
8:50 The Company That Bought Itself
11:31 What Left the Building
13:19 The Renovation Budget Was an Interest Payment
15:58 The Parking Lot Where You Learned to Ride
17:45 A Toy Store Without Toys
19:22 Everything Must Go
20:48 A Failed Bet or a Fee Schedule
25:53 Malls Were Designed to Make You Lost

Sources: SEC filings, US Bankruptcy Court Eastern District of Virginia (Case No. 17-34665), Toys R Us Inc. Annual Reports 2005-2017, KKR/Bain Capital/Vornado transaction documents.

The Silent Citadel — forensic documentaries on the financial mechanisms behind institutional collapse.

#toysrus #businessdocumentary #privateequity