9 Great American Companies That Aren't Recovering

Few companies escaped the last few years completely unscathed, but most are at least showing signs of improvement. Not so for these nine former All Stars. Check out Huffington Post’s great article taking a look at the 9 companies that have yet to achieve a corporate turnaround. You may be surprised to see some of the national brands that made the list!

1. Borders

Borders Group Inc. (NYSE: BGP) may have a financial white knight, or it may not. Reports were out late last week that GE's finance arm held talks about providing a financial lifeline. Then came word that Borders hired restructuring lawyers. It recently began delaying payments to vendors to conserve cash. Let's pretend that Borders does get a last-ditch financing pact and that it gets its debt refinanced. What really changes? Borders has faced eroding sales and the last sales gain for a year was in calendar 2006 (fiscal year ending Feb. 3, 2007). The new figure was down roughly 30% by even a year ago since then. Borders just trimmed 45 jobs at the corporate headquarters in Michigan and that is on the heels of a fresh plan to close a Tennessee distribution center to cut 310 more jobs.

Borders is now a penny stock and its market cap is a mere $64 million. With shares back under the $1.00 mark, a delisting notice is a risk and more problems may be coming its way. For some reason, the Fahrenheit 451 analogy keeps coming to mind.

2. Boston Scientific

Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX) is one that we (and many others) keep thinking will make a comeback. The medical device maker has been riddled with device issues and recalls. Its prior 3-year run of roughly $8 billion in revenues is expected to fall to $7.79 billion in 2010 and $7.91 billion in 2011, according to Thomson Reuters. The only saving grace is that the earnings estimates of $0.39 EPS for 2010 and $0.43 EPS for 2011. We see little risk to an implosion here, but the company is lost in space.

Competition from Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Medtronic (NYSE: MDT), St. Jude Medical (NYSE: STJ) is fierce, and its acquisition of Guidant for almost $27 billion has never really paid off despite Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) participating in that merger. At $7.33, shares are less than half and then some since its Guidant deal was completed.

Continue reading at Huffington Post.com...

Greece Considering Legal Action Against U.S. Banks for Crisis

According to Bloomberg.com, the Greek government might consider taking legal action against U.S. investment banks for contributing to their debt crisis. Prime Minister George Papandreou spoke out about the issue over the weekend.

“I wouldn’t rule out that this may be a recourse,” Papandreou said, in response to questions about the role of U.S. banks in the crisis, in an interview on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.” The program, scheduled for broadcast today, was taped on May 13. Neither Papandreou nor Zakaria mentioned any banks by name.

U.S. stocks fell and the euro slumped on concern that Europe wouldn’t be able to contain the debt crisis stemming from Greece. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index declined 1.9 percent May 14, while the euro fell below $1.24 for the first time since November 2008.

Papandreou said the decision on whether to go after U.S. banks will be made after a Greek parliamentary investigation into the cause of the crisis.

“Greece will look into the past and see how things went,” Papandreou said. “There are similar investigations going on in other countries and in the United States. This is where I think, yes, the financial sector, I hear the words fraud and lack of transparency. So yes, yes, there is great responsibility here.”