Business failures, costly decisions and the lessons they leave behind.
The full archive, in the appDanish biotech NeuroSearch spent 20 years on Pridopidine. The Phase III trial failed in 2010. By 2012, the company had no funding and sold its only asset.
Read the caseNEVS was founded in 2012 to revive Saab. It built a few 9-3s, went bankrupt in 2014, revived with Chinese money, then collapsed in 2023 with no cars delivered.
Read the caseA Shenzhen power plant signed a KODA option with Goldman Sachs. If oil stayed above $62, it made $30K/month. If oil fell, it lost $400K per dollar. Oil crashed.
Read the caseA Plains All American crude oil trader made unauthorized short-sell bets, forged the president's signature to conceal them, and lost $162M when oil prices rose.
Read the caseCanSino's Convidecia was a COVID blockbuster — RMB 4.3B in 2021. When demand vanished, the company lost RMB 2.8B and 94% of its market cap.
Read the caseChina's Brilliance Group lived on BMW JV profits while its own brands lost money. In 2020 it defaulted on ¥6.5B of bonds and entered bankruptcy restructuring.
Read the caseChinese steel structure maker lost $6M on raw material futures. The hedge was for 'expected procurement' that never happened. It secretly used reserve funds.
Read the caseChinese dairy company lost $5.8M trading soybean meal, sugar and urea futures. It failed to disclose the losses. The CSRC fined the company and its executives.
Read the caseJinzi Ham's rogue trader sold 902 hog futures without authorization, losing $8.7M. His father-in-law repaid $7.4M, hiding the loss triggered a CSRC fraud probe.
Read the caseCarlsberg closed its 18-year-old Hong Kong brewery in 1999. High costs and the Asian financial crisis made it unprofitable, and production moved to China.
Read the caseBlue River Holdings, a Hong Kong investment firm, lost $120M on Evergrande Vehicle in 2021 when China's property crisis exploded.
Read the caseA British Columbia day trader earned then lost $415M CAD on Tesla stock in 2022, then sued RBC for letting him keep trading.
Read the caseSteve Jobs launched Ping in 2010 with unauthorized Facebook integration. Facebook blocked it immediately, and the social network for iTunes never recovered.
Read the caseLilly pushed Zyprexa for dementia in the elderly despite knowing it caused extreme weight gain and raised death risk. The DOJ settlement was $1.415 billion.
Read the caseGoogle's smartphone VR platform required a specific phone, a headset, and losing access to your apps. It lasted three years before Google pulled the plug.
Read the caseNintendo's Wii U had a confusing GamePad and a weak launch lineup. It sold 13.56M units against the Wii's 101M, forcing Nintendo to rethink everything.
Read the caseThe idea that willpower is a limited resource became a cornerstone of business self-help. A 2016 replication with 23 labs found no evidence it exists.
Read the caseThe space frame roof of Hartford's new arena collapsed at 4:15 AM, hours after a basketball game. The design was too light — but nobody did the math to check.
Read the caseQatar's sovereign wealth fund lost $300M on its Credit Suisse investment when the Swiss bank collapsed in 2023 and was taken over by UBS.
Read the caseBalyasny Asset Management's London office lost $100M on event-driven investing in 2023, the latest in a series of losses at multi-manager hedge funds.
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