The biggest startup bankruptcy since Circular 331
November 7, 2018
It may have all started six years ago, with the zone of low air pressure that moved westward over the Atlantic, encountering large amounts of relatively warm water in the middle of nowhere. The resulting tropical cyclone became known as Hurricane Sandy and caused havoc in eight countries in the Americas, taking more than 230 lives and destroying properties along its northward trail through the Caribbean and along the Eastern seaboard of the United States. Damages were an estimated $65 billion in the US with $42 billion in New York State alone.
One reading of the series of misfortunes behind the mid-2018 shuttering of Bookwitty, a star in the firmament of Lebanese entrepreneurship, was that it all began during Sandy, when the company’s warehouse in New York was flooded. Inventory and equipment were destroyed, and sales revenue lost to the tune of more than $1 million (technicalities and legalities meant this los