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This is not just a story about companies that lose money.
There are more than enough of those.
Nor is this just a story about companies whose fortunes reversed for the better. In the 1980s, a bitter recession followed by almost unprecedented economic recovery produced plenty of those too.
Rather, this is a story of five New Jersey public companies that first soared to dizzying heights, then came crashing down to earth to bury themselves. This came during the continued economic growth and rise in the stock market. This is the story of five public companies whose financial troubles have graced the pages of the business press. Their situations can be deemed certifiable disasters of the times.
Of the five, three -- Coated Sales Inc., Regina Co. and Zenith Laboratories -- are in bankruptcy. International Thoroughbred Breeders, while it has stemmed the flow somewhat, still has lost as much as a Texas savings and loan. And finally, Crazy Eddie may be on the road to recovery.
Here, then, are the stories of The Fallen Five.
COATED SALES INC.
The rise of Coated Sales Inc. was spectacular. Brought public by the now-defunct Kobrin Securities during the new-issue heyday of the middle 1980s, the Laurence Harbor-based company soon jumped from pink sheet status to full-fledged Over-the-Counter stardom. Most of the rest of Kobrin's offerings soon faded into oblivion. The reason for Coated Sales' rise was quite simple --its earnings, though miniscule at first, had a habit of doubling and even tripling every year, sometimes every six months.
Coated Sales was started as the second career of millionaire entrepreneur Michael Weinstein, who had sold the discount drug store chain he built up and then "retired" in his 30s. Looking for a new business, he became interested in textiles through a friend. The proposition was simple: Take unfinished textiles, known as greige or gray goods, and finish them with specialized coatings or treatments. Hence the name, Coated Sales. A prime market was the U.S. military, but there were also many applications for specialized, "high-tech" fabrics -- lightweight, waterproof raincoats for aircraft maintenance workers in the tropics, for example, or the escape chutes for these same aircraft.
Weinstein also found the specialty textile business was run almost exclusively by...