BankruptcyData.com’s research reveals that a total of 86 publicly-traded companies filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012 with a total of $70.8 billion in combined pre-petition assets. This filing count is the exact same figure seen in 2011, which had $104 billion in total assets.

The average pre-petition asset figure of bankrupt companies in 2012 fell slightly to $824 million – compared to $1.2 billion in 2011. When ranked by total assets, the largest filing of 2012 was, by a significant margin, Residential Capital’s $15.7 billion bankruptcy, followed by Edison Mission Energy with $8.3 billion in assets and Eastman Kodak Company’s $6.2 billion filing.

The Ten Largest Bankruptcies of 2012 (Ranked by Assets) are (listed by company, bankruptcy date, business description and assets in millions):

  • Residential Capital, LLC, 05/14/12, Real Estate Finance, $15,676

  • Edison Mission Energy, 12/17/12, Power Producer, $8,323

  • Eastman Kodak Company, 01/19/12, Imaging Technology, $6,239

  • Overseas Shipholding Group, Inc., 11/14/12, Oil & Petroleum Transport, $4,034

  • Patriot Coal Corporation, 07/09/12, Coal Mining, $3,777

  • ATP Oil & Gas Corporation, 08/17/12, Oil & Gas Development, $3,389

  • First Place Financial Corp., 10/28/12, Unitary Thrift, $3,153

  • Hawker Beechcraft Acquisition Co., 05/03/12, Aviation Services, $2,778

  • Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., 05/21/12, Publishing, $2,680

  • United Western Bancorp, Inc., 03/02/12, Unitary Thrift, $2,526

    The same three companies top the 2012 list when sorted by pre-petition liabilities; however, the second and third place ordering reversed: Residential Capital, $15.3 billion in liabilities; Eastman Kodak Company, $7.3 billion in liabilities and Edison Mission Energy, $6.7 billion in liabilities.

    When this year’s corporate bankruptcies are sorted by pre-bankruptcy revenue figures, the gold, silver and bronze go to the following petitioners: Eastman Kodak Company, $7.2 billion in revenue; Hawker Beechcraft Acquisition Company, LLC, $2.4 billion in revenue and Patriot Coal Corporation, $2.4 billion in revenue.

    To read the BankruptcyData’s press release in its entirety, click here.