Sourcing his collection everywhere from industry liquidation sales to government auctions and carting himself out to the seller to avoid paying for shipping, he'd get his hands on headsets that once cost nearly $100,000 for less than $100.
He predicts further liquidations in the industry.
Even as traditional mergers and acquisitions work declines due to the credit crunch, Skadden's workout lawyers are busy advising clients in multibillion-dollar reorganizations, including Circuit City, which is now in liquidation, and Access Industries, the holding company of Russian-born industriaLent Len Blavatnik, whose Lyondell Chemical unit recently entered bankruptcy.
A bankrupt US Airways today won most of the emergency pay cuts it said were critical to avoid liquidation, and the airline industry's other bankrupt company, United, said it wanted to terminate its labor contracts and would seek deeper cuts from its employees.
A bankruptcy judge has approved the liquidation plan for Farmland Industries, but creditors will not begin receiving money until the cooperative sells an oil refinery.
The EU is calling for the liquidation of Greece's defence industry, a further reduction in civil servant posts, and the health of the key privatisation programme.
A Chapter 11 filing may be the middle ground between the government-financed "trust me," pain-free, business-as-usual path Detroit prefers and its straw man, the draconian forecast of Chapter 7 with its accompanying specter of a near-term liquidation of the entire American auto industry.
Companies in many industries are considering a liquidation or in the midst of one: the steel maker LTV Corporation; old and new retailers like Montgomery Ward and Webvan; and the insurance company Reliance Group Holdings, formerly controlled by the investor Saul Steinberg.
Rather than experience the disruptions and chaos that could occur with liquidation, Mr. Usher wants the highly fragmented steel industry to consolidate in a more orderly way.
But the court action was seen as mainly procedural and an eventual liquidation of assets was likely, analysts and industry officials said.
