That's what happened in Iridium's case. They created a new company, which bought all the assets for $25 million and the original entity defaulted on $1.5 billion in debt. The new company now does business with the original name.

It's the same thing that happened with the GM's 2009 bankruptcy. Technically the original company was liquidated, but you'd never know as a customer.

A family member made a big short bet on Iridium after he decided they couldn't survive and made a lot of money.