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Zips files for bankruptcy

650 mil debt with 1 mil cash on hand? Lots of sleepless nights.....
That was eye opening for me too. Another one is that they are currently in debt for around 2.5 per location and can't make ends meet. They are basically saying that they can make it if they go down to about 1.5 per location. That seems nutty to me knowing a new build costs 5-6 mil on average.
 
Meanwhile, Mister's stock is about a third of its value from its peak four years ago. Then, Take 5 has closed a bunch of locations in the last year or so and then the other day sells out to Whistle Express making it the largest car wash company in the US.
 
Take 5 had seen this issue about a year ago and already had decided to exit the car wash market to focus on their core businesses. Their exit was planned, they tried car washes and saw it didn't work for them. Their stock has done well after announcing their car wash exit
 
Leave private equity in the drivers seat and this will be the whole industry...

High interest rates are absolutely destroying these PE owned wash groups. 260 sites, 1800 employees, and they have 1 mil cash on hand.

insane



Distributors/Manufacturers have exposure here...
 
They seek to write off 279 million in debt and got another operating loan for 30 million. They sold 6 locations in Orlando for 58 million. You can not wash enough cars to pay almost 10 million per location so there are still suckers being born everyday.
 
You can't have a boom without a corresponding bust, regardless of the industry. It's going to be interesting to see who's left standing after the inevitable contraction occurs. There are still a handful of independent tunnel operators in my area that are doing really well but they've stayed focused on turning out clean cars and using the membership as a secondary promotion instead of the core of the business.
 
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