When I decided to leave Nova two months ago, I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. I was leaving a job that was easy, an apartment that was comfortable, and an area that was new and interesting. I was moving to a new job that was not necessarily worse, but certainly different to the easy life I was used to at Nova.
As of a week ago, I didn’t have to wonder any longer about whether I made the right decision. On October 26th Nova filed for asset protection, and closed all branches indefinitely. Essentially Nova is bankrupt, and by filing for asset protection they don’t have to pay wages or refunds until they can work out what Nova has left.
As I’ve mentioned before, Nova still owes me half a months pay, not much compared to the money owed to some people, but still a nice sum that it would be useful to have in my account as opposed to Nova’s. When Nova closed all their branches they held a press conference that was televised into all the branches via Ginganet, basically they asked for ten days to either find a sponsor for the company, or they will declare bankruptcy and end it.
The ten days are over on Monday, so it will be very interesting to see what happens. There has been a rumor floating around that they have found a sponsor who will reopen select branches and slowly reopen more until they are at a sustainable level, but it takes a special kind of person to think Nova is a good deal in it’s current state.
In terms of what it means to me, if Nova goes bankrupt I join the queue waiting for a government payout. We’ve been told that the Government has a fund set aside for when companies go bankrupt, and I would be paid up to 80% of the money owing to me, eventually. This could take months, and would probably involve complicated Japanese paperwork.
The alternative is if the company gets bought. Anyone buying the company would take on all the debts, including the money owed to me. In theory I would be paid immediately, however that rumor I mentioned earlier is that the sponsor is actually going to bankrupt the company, pass all debts onto the government, then use the brand to reopen and only pay the money owed to teachers who are willing to stay on with the company. It’s just a rumor, but that’d suck for me because I’m back to the situation where I’m waiting for the government to do something.
Either way it’s a very interesting situation. We had a new teacher start last week, he came from Nova as well. His landlord contacted him shortly after Nova closed, and tried to evict him. He’s still got a week or so before he can move in here, I think he’s got it all smoothed over, but that’s the sort of thing that’s happening all over the country. Nova was big in the english industry here, and you know what they say about the bigger they are.
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