LADO Files for Bankruptcy

The Asahi Shimbun is reporting that eikaiwa school Lado International has filed for bankruptcy [link is to Japanese article]. The story offers no details, but compare the timing of the story today with the announcement from The General Union a few days ago that it has scored a "historic victory" in its fight with Lado. It can't be a complete coincidence, can it?

Update April 9

A post in the Lado Teachers and Staff mailing list notes that Lado went under due to bad management:

A lot of the teachers only remember or know of the final months of Ogawa's reign and have forgotten or don't know about the first few days and weeks of his arrival. I knew that with patience he would loose. I will never ever forgive him for the way he treated the teachers and staff in those weeks. He was the worst of them all and deserves to rot in hell. The harder they come the harder they fall, I say. His entire empire has fallen like a ton of bricks. He made the mistake of mixing up his assets between his companies. Borrowing from to finance another and vic a versa. As a result all of his companies have been declared bankrupt by the courts. Even the marketing company Gaiya plus. It's rumoured by good sources that he had even put his own house and life inssurance up as security in order to borrow money. As a result, he's been forced into declaring personal bankruptcy too. There should be a law against people like that. Lado had good staff, a good product and loyal students. He just fucked it all up and now he's fucked too. Good, he deserves it.

Malcolm

Presumably after the General Union's victory, their efforts will now be focused on recovering wages owed to the teachers.