Forever 21申請破產

When Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy in September, the fast fashion chain described its history in documents that read, at times, like a pitch for a memoir or a Netflix special.

Forever 21在9月提交破產申請時，這家快時尚連鎖企業(yè)在文件中描述了自己的歷史，讀起來有時像是為一本回憶錄或網飛(Netflix)的特別節(jié)目做宣傳。

Photos of the company’s husband and wife founders, Do Won and Jin Sook Chang, and their two daughters appeared under headings like “Forever Striving: A Story of Grit, Determination, and Passion.” The filing emphasized the improbable success of the Changs, who immigrated to the United States from South Korea in 1981 and built a multibillion-dollar business from scratch.

公司創(chuàng)始人張東文和妻子張金淑夫婦，以及他們兩個女兒的照片出現在類似《永遠在奮斗：一個關于勇氣、決心和激情的故事》(Forever Striving: A Story of Grit, Determination, and Passion)這樣的標題下。申請文件強調了張氏家族所取得的不可思議的成功，他們于1981年從韓國移民到美國，白手起家建立了一家價值數十億美元的企業(yè)。

There were references to the daughters’ undergraduate degrees from “Ivy League universities” — both are top executives at the company — and summer breaks spent at Forever 21 stores.

文件提到他們的兩個女兒在“常春藤高校”獲得本科學位——她們都是公司的高管——暑假都在Forever 21店鋪度過。

At its peak, the retailer brought in more than $4 billion in annual sales and employed more than 43,000 people worldwide in hundreds of stores. Now it is leaving 40 countries and closing up to 199, or more than 30%, of its stores in the United States as part of its bankruptcy, and former employees and industry experts are pointing to the Changs’ insular management style as a significant reason for the collapse. They cite disastrous real estate deals and the chain’s bungled merchandising strategy in recent years.

在鼎盛時期，這家零售商的年銷售額超過40億美元，在全球數百家門店雇傭逾4.3萬名員工。如今，作為破產的一部分，它將退出40個國家，關閉在美國的199家門店，占總數的30%以上;前雇員和行業(yè)專家指出，張氏家族的封閉管理風格是其破產的一個重要原因。他們列舉了近年來災難性的房地產交易和該連鎖企業(yè)搞砸的營銷策略。

“On the founder side, this hubris thing is pretty common, but it’s particularly deadly if you’ve been successful for a long time,” said Erik Gordon, a management expert at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. “They didn’t have a board of directors to give them a reality check, they didn’t have equity analysts to give them a reality check.”

“對于創(chuàng)始人來說，這種傲慢很常見，但如果你已經成功了很長時間，這種傲慢就尤其致命，”密歇根大學羅斯商學院(University of Michigan Ross School of Business)的管理學專家埃里克·戈登(Erik Gordon)說。“他們沒有董事會給他們進行實情核查，他們沒有股票分析師給他們進行實情核查。”

He added: “You can live in your self-created bubble for a lot longer, but then the bubble pops.”

他補充道：“你可以在自己創(chuàng)造的泡沫中生活更長的時間，但之后泡沫會破滅。”