R
56 companies
Renault
Automotive
French automaker that formed the groundbreaking Renault-Nissan alliance in 1999, investing $5.4B for a 36.8% stake in near-bankrupt Nissan. Under Carl...
Royal FloraHolland
Agriculture / Floriculture
Royal FloraHolland exemplifies niche partitioning and cooperative infrastructure. The world's largest flower auction, housed in a 12 million square fo...
Ratner's Group
Retail/Jewelry
Gerald Ratner destroyed £500 million in shareholder value in April 1991 with a single sentence. Speaking to 6,000 Institute of Directors attendees at...
Reliance Industries
Conglomerate (Energy, Petrochemicals, Retail, Telecom)
India's largest conglomerate with ₹9 trillion (~$110 billion) revenue demonstrates vertical integration as fractal depth. Rather than horizontal brand...
Roche Holding AG
Pharmaceuticals/Diagnostics
Roche's $68.3 billion revenue (2024) flows from a mutualistic integration unmatched in pharma: pharmaceuticals ($46.2B) and diagnostics ($14.3B) under...
RadioShack
Electronics Retail
RadioShack's slow death across two bankruptcies (2015, 2017) and ultimate liquidation illustrates how an organism can lose its ecological niche withou...
RadioShack (Final Bankruptcy)
Electronics Retail
RadioShack's second bankruptcy in 2017—after emerging from the first in 2015—demonstrates how restructuring without transformation delays rather than...
Rainier Brewing Company
Beverages
Rainier Brewing's 1999 Seattle brewery closure ended local production of the Pacific Northwest icon. Successive owners (Heileman, Stroh, Pabst) moved...
Rakuten, Inc.
E-commerce & Technology
Rakuten achieved 2.3 trillion yen consolidated revenue in FY2024 (+10.0% year-over-year, 28th consecutive year of growth) while Internet Services, Fin...
Rdio
Music Streaming
Rdio's 2015 bankruptcy demonstrates how music streaming platforms face winner-take-most dynamics. Despite superior design praised by critics, Rdio cou...
Reckitt
Consumer Goods
Reckitt mastered corporate autophagy in 2024-2025, executing what most consumer goods companies talk about but rarely deliver: selective self-digestio...
Red Bull
Beverages
Red Bull sold 12.7 billion cans in 2024 generating €11.2 billion revenue ($11.7B USD), growth slowing to 4.4% volume and 6.4% revenue as the energy dr...
Red Hat
Enterprise Software
Red Hat Enterprise Linux generated $6.5 billion in 2025 revenue—nearly double the $3.4 billion IBM paid annually when acquiring the company for $34 bi...
Red Lobster
Restaurants - Casual Dining
Red Lobster's 2024 bankruptcy after 56 years of operation demonstrated how promotional strategies can become death sentences when unit economics break...
Social Media
Reddit functions as a colonial organism comprising over 100,000 subreddits, each a semi-autonomous polyp with specialized function, collectively achie...
Refco
Financial Services
Refco's 2005 collapse came just weeks after its IPO, when it was revealed that CEO Phillip Bennett had hidden $430 million in bad debt by temporarily...
Regional Hospital Partners
Healthcare
Regional Hospital Partners' collapse in 2019 illustrated the private equity model in rural healthcare: acquire struggling hospitals, cut costs, extrac...
Relativity Media
Entertainment
Relativity's 2015 bankruptcy demonstrates how film studios can collapse from financial engineering gone wrong. Ryan Kavanaugh's company used complex f...
Reliance Communications
Telecommunications
Reliance Communications' 2019 insolvency ended Anil Ambani's telecom ambitions and demonstrated sibling rivalry as business strategy failure. When pat...
RELX
Information Services
RELX reported £9.4 billion revenue in 2024, with 7% underlying growth and adjusted operating margin of 33.9%—the highest in its sector. First half 202...
Remgro Limited
Investment Holding
Remgro Limited operates as South Africa's apex predator holding company - a strategic capital allocator that doesn't produce goods or services but orc...
Remington Outdoor Company
Firearms Manufacturing
Remington's 2018 and 2020 bankruptcies ended America's oldest firearms manufacturer after 202 years. The company faced declining demand after post-San...
Rent the Runway (Decline)
Retail
Rent the Runway's stock collapsed 95% as the fashion rental pioneer couldn't achieve profitability despite pioneering a category. The company faced th...
Reply
Information Technology
Reply's €2.12 billion 2023 revenue and 15,000 employees operate through a network model of highly specialized subsidiaries, each focusing on distinct...
Repsol S.A.
Oil & Gas
Repsol posted €1.76 billion in net profit during 2024 while simultaneously investing over €1.2 billion in renewable fuels, electric vehicle charging,...
Research In Motion (BlackBerry)
Mobile Technology
RIM/BlackBerry serves as the cautionary tale of staying at depleted patches too long. In 2007, BlackBerry dominated enterprise email with eventual pea...
Revel Casino
Gaming/Hospitality
Revel Casino's 2014 bankruptcy came just 2 years after opening, making it one of the fastest major casino failures. The $2.4 billion Atlantic City res...
Revlon (Bankruptcy)
Consumer Goods
Revlon's 2022 bankruptcy demonstrates how legacy beauty brands face disruption from DTC and influencer brands. The 90-year-old cosmetics giant couldn'...
Revolut
Financial Services/Fintech
European fintech company founded in 2015 by Nikolay Storonsky (former Credit Suisse derivatives trader) and Vlad Yatsenko after Storonsky was charged...
Rex Stores Corporation
Retail
Rex Stores' decline from appliance retailer to synthetic CDO holder exemplifies management distraction. The company operated 200+ appliance stores in...
Rheingold Brewery
Beverages
Rheingold's 1976 closure ended New York City's last major brewery after the 'Miss Rheingold' beauty contest lost cultural relevance and national compe...
Rheinmetall
Defense
€9.75 billion in 2024 revenue (up 36%), €1.48 billion operating profit (up 61%), and a €62.6 billion order backlog that reads like hyperphagia in indu...
Rightmove
Technology
Rightmove is the UK's largest online property portal. The platform lists properties from estate agents and developers across the country. It dominates...
Rio Tinto
Mining
Global mining corporation founded in 1873, demonstrating 150 years of survival through commodity price cycles. The company exemplifies counter-cyclica...
Riot Platforms
Cryptocurrency Mining
Bitcoin mining company operating large-scale mining facilities focused on building the lowest cost production. Develops and operates infrastructure fo...
Rite Aid
Pharmacy Retail
Rite Aid is the third-largest pharmacy chain in the United States, operating primarily on the East and West coasts. The company has faced significant...
Ritz-Carlton
Hospitality
Luxury hotel chain that signals service quality through the $2,000 employee empowerment allowance - any employee can spend up to $2,000 to solve a cus...
Rivian
Automotive - Electric Vehicles
Rivian is an electric vehicle manufacturer focused on adventure trucks and SUVs, with Amazon as largest shareholder.
Ro
Healthcare
Direct-to-consumer telehealth company offering online diagnosis and prescription services. Started with men's health, expanded to broader healthcare c...
Robinhood
Financial Services/Fintech
American financial services company cited as example of business model contradicting stated mission. Markets itself as 'democratizing finance' but mak...
Roblox
Gaming Platform
Roblox operates gaming platform with multi-sided network effects. More players attract more developers in exponential feedback loops with platform eco...
Rocky Mountain News
Newspaper
Rocky Mountain News' 2009 closure after 150 years demonstrates how two-newspaper towns became no-newspaper towns. Denver's older paper couldn't surviv...
Roku
Streaming Platform
Roku provides streaming platform with two-sided network effects. Platform economics create high-margin advertising with first-mover advantage.
Rolex
Luxury Watches
Swiss luxury watchmaker that exemplifies intrasexual competition dynamics. Originally positioned as tool watches for explorers (Edmund Hillary's 1953...
Rolls-Royce
Aerospace
British aerospace company that pioneered 'Power by the Hour' (PbH) - a revolutionary outcome-based service model representing organizational mutualism...
RTW Retailwinds
Retail
RTW Retailwinds (formerly New York & Company) filed bankruptcy in July 2020, collapsing a workwear retailer that had pivoted too late to survive. The...
RTX Corporation
Aerospace & Defense
RTX combines aerospace and defense through vertical integration of engines, avionics, and weapons systems. Economies of scale in military contracts an...
Ruby Tuesday
Restaurants - Casual Dining
Ruby Tuesday's 2020 bankruptcy was the culmination of a decade-long decline that saw the casual dining chain shrink from 850 locations to under 250. T...
Ruby Tuesday (2020)
Restaurant
Ruby Tuesday's October 2020 bankruptcy was the chain's second filing. The casual dining company had emerged from Chapter 11 in 2018, only to face COVI...
Ruby's Diner
Restaurant
Ruby's Diner's October 2018 bankruptcy collapsed a retro 1940s-themed diner chain that had expanded beyond its California base. The company operated 3...
Rue La La
E-commerce
Rue La La was sold multiple times at declining valuations: $350 million in 2009 to GSI Commerce, which was sold to eBay, which sold it to Kynetic in 2...
Rue21 (Bankruptcy)
Teen Apparel
Rue21's 2017 bankruptcy after expanding to 1,200 locations demonstrates how aggressive expansion can accelerate death. The teen retailer grew into hea...
Russian Aviation Sector
Aviation
Russia's aviation sector effectively collapsed in 2022 after Western sanctions following the Ukraine invasion. Airlines operating 515 leased aircraft...
RWE
Energy
Energy ecosystems are undergoing adaptive radiation as fossil fuel niches empty and renewable specialists proliferate. RWE generated €24.2 billion in...
Ryanair
Airlines
Ryanair achieved what theory predicts but few execute: absolute cost leadership creating permanent competitive advantage in commoditized markets. The...
Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd. (Muji)
Retail & Consumer Goods
Ryohin Keikaku operates the Muji brand, known for its minimalist, no-brand quality goods philosophy. The company offers a wide range of products from...