The most famous and recognizable brands seem to be indestructible giants in the field of business. But many of them were on a thread from bankruptcy. We talk about ten such companies that not only resisted afloat, but also gained world fame.

BMW came out of World War II with serious financial and infrastructure problems. Her plants were bombed, and also companies were temporarily banned from resuming the production of cars. Therefore, she survived through sales of household goods, bicycles, and later low -power motorcycles.

The low sales of its first post -war car 501 and a small profit from a three -wheeled illegal of ISetta led BMW to a financial abyss. Sports Roadster 507, presented in 1956, did not live up to expectations, and its high production costs added additional load on the automaker.

The situation was so dramatic that BMW almost passed into the possession of Mercedes-Benz. But a few months before the final negotiations on this deal, the BMW 700 - a small sedan with the rear engine and a whole body entered the market.

Thanks to excellent manageability and ease of service, the 700th immediately became a hit and returned BMW to the right direction.

This car in 1962 was followed by a New Class series, which restored BMW as a solid and financially independent automaker. It was the New Class that ultimately gave rise to the cult models of the 3rd and 5th series.

Walt Disney - director, multiplier and creative genius - founded his first company in 1920. The Laugh-O-Gram studio, in which, in addition to Disney, there were 5 more key figures, created short advertising films and cartoons. Disney even had an agreement with the New York distribution company to show his films in cinemas.

But in 1922, everything went wrong. The distributor began to lure the money from Disney, which is why the director did not have enough funds necessary to cover his accounts. Faced with growing debts, Walt Disney announced bankruptcy in 1923.

In the same year, Walt Disney created a new film company, taking a loan from his parents and brother. His debts were written off, and the new company was properly financed, and in 1928 Disney created his most cult character - Mickey Mouse. Almost ten years later, he released Snow White and Seven Dwarfs, and the rest is already a story.

Due to the world recession and strong competition from Dunkin Donuts and McDonald’s, Starbucks shares lost 42% of their cost in 2007.

With the advent of a new line of hot sandwiches and growing attention to music and goods sold in stores, the company lost its “aroma” of a coffee shop, which made it popular.

Howard Schulz returned to his post of general director in January 2008 and began work to modernize the company. He began by narrowing Starbucks focus and put coffee in first place. Also followed by the reductions of 600 stores and the dismissal of 12,000 employees.

In 2008, Starbucks closed all its 7,100 stores in the United States for several hours to conduct a retraining course of employees. It was not cheap, but attracted the attention of the press. The company also introduced a program of incentives for loyalty in order to hold its customers during the period of economic recession.

By the end of 2010, the company returned to the right path, having received almost $ 11 billion of annual income.

In 2014, the failure of the Wii U portable console led to the fact that the company for the first time in its 125-year history incurred operating losses over three financial years in a row. And some industry observers even wondered whether Nintendo should still produce game consoles.

The skeptics were shameful in 2017, when the Nintendo Switch was released - a hybrid of a portable device and a gaming console, which allows you to play on a user TV or on a built -in screen of a mobile tablet.

After the integration of the console and portable units in 2013, Nintendo was able to move games developers between different projects, which was used to ensure a stable release of well -proven games.

The company also corrected the Wii U loading time for a long time, creating an optimized process that allows players to include the device and enter the gameplay using three buttons presses.

In 2003, faced with a fall in sales and many unsuccessful commercial enterprises, the famous company almost went bankrupt. Her debt at that time amounted to $ 800 million.

However, Lego cases were established when in 2004, Jorgen Vig Knudstorp came to the post of director. He reduced the costs with several methods, including:

In addition, LEGO began to cooperate with companies producing video games, and film studios for creating cross -over media. The film Lego Movie, shot by Warner Brothers in 2014, became a real hit that helped Lego increase profit by 15% compared to last year.

The company also encourages its fans to present their own projects and ideas: winning work receive 1% of world sales after the release of the product.

At the beginning of 2021, the market capitalization of Ilona Mask exceeded $ 770 billion, ahead of giants such as Facebook and Tencent.

However, in one of his posts on Twitter, Musk admitted that Tesla was “in a month” from bankruptcy during the production of Model 3 (from mid -2017 to mid -2019).

Musk often said what he calls the “production and logistics hell” when the new electric car enters mass production. However, the leadership of Tesla until 2020 never revealed how small the runway was before the company could face bankruptcy.

In the period from 2007 to 2012, Nokia lost 96% of its market share, losing it to Apple and Android devices. But thanks to a successful Nokia turn, today there is a company with a turnover of $ 28 billion and is one of the leaders of the network equipment market.

In 2013, the company sold its Microsoft Corporation smartphones, for which it received $ 7.6 billion. Nokia then drew attention to her business in the field of network infrastructure.

In June 2013, the Finns paid 2.2 billion dollars to get full control over the joint telecommunication equipment with Siemens. And in 2015, Nokia bought its competitor Alcatel-Lucent for $ 16.6 billion.

However, Nokia did not “tie up” with smartphones completely. In 2016, Microsoft sold a Finnish company mobile business called HMD Global. Now she is engaged in the development and sales of devices under the Nokia brand, and the company of the same name receives royalties for patents.

In 2009, the United States undertook one of the most outstanding interventions in the private sector in the history of the country. The government invested almost 50 billion dollars in General Motors in exchange for 60% of the shares of a bankrupt automaker.

The then General Director Fritz Henderson asked to resign more than 400 out of 1300 managers of the company, this was followed by a reduction in car dealerships, employees and entire units, such as Pontiac and Saturn. Thanks to these changes by the end of 2013, the pretty “weighty” GM has reached profitability within 15 quarters in a row.

However, 2014 brought bad news - a malfunction in the ignition lock led to numerous fatal accidents, and almost 30 million cars. This step cost GM more than $ 4 billion.

Over the past years, the company has recovered under the leadership of Mary Barra, the first woman-generation director of the company and the GM veteran.

Summary experiences are a common occurrence for Marvel characters, but they were also survived by the company that created them.

Marvel went bankrupt at the end of 1996 after the market of comic book collectors crashed. Thanks to the help of Isaac Perlmutter and his Toy Biz toys company, she managed to get out of the financial pit in July 1997 and quickly find a stable foundation in Marvel Studios, which was created shortly before bankruptcy.

While the previous Marvel projects were postponed after the sale of large studios, the new studio allowed Marvel to speed up the process by ordering scripts and hiring key actors and directors. Films such as Blade, X-Men and especially Spider-Man were successful at the box office, and Marvel received a huge increase in comic book sales and other licensing opportunities.

But the lion's share of the fees went to film studios who owned Marvel characters, such as Sony Pictures. The first two films about Spider-Man raised 3 billion dollars around the world, and Marvel of them got only $ 62 million.

As a result, the Marvel Board of Directors went to a potentially risky deal with Merrill Lynch to finance the production of Marvel films from beginning to end. And the first film shot in the framework of a new deal was the Iron Man. He raised almost $ 600 million at the world box office.

The success of the picture inspired Disney to acquire a company for $ 4 billion in 2009 and became a decisive factor for creating a cinematic universe Marvel, which has only been growing since then.

Today it is almost impossible to imagine the world without Apple, but in 1997 this company was “on a life support apparatus” when Steve Jobs returned to it, after a long break.

According to the biography of Jobs, written by Walter Isexon, 90 days remained before the bankruptcy of the company.

Apple recovery began with Microsoft investments of $ 150 million. They became part of a peaceful pact concluded by Microsoft for protection against antimonopoly accusations. Bill Gates kept afloat its largest competitor.

Then Jobs began work to reduce Apple products in order for the company to focus on selling a small number of innovative devices. He fired 3,000 employees and stopped the production of about 70% of Apple products, including Newton Messagepad.

These measures paid off next year, with the release of IMAC. This desktop computer convenient for the consumer with an elegant, translucent design and simple Internet tuning was sold almost 800,000 units in the first 5 months. The success of the product has done 1998 by the first profitable year for Apple since 1995.

Today, Apple is a company worth $ 300 billion, and a synonym for attractive gadget design. But all this could never have happened without financial assistance to Microsoft and the titanic efforts of Steve Jobs.

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