And up until this point the Bankruptcy filing of J Crew is little different from what I suspect will be the same story repeated over and over again. As retailer after retailer will undoubtedly go under the waves. Currently rumored to be close to filing are Neiman Marcus and JC Penny. Unfortunately nothing new for Penny.

But here is the twist for J Crew, and the thing that makes this particular bankruptcy worth following.

J Crew has elected to convert much of its corporate debt, currently estimated to be about $1.7 billion, into equity. This is the complete opposite of what all of corporate America has done for the last 20 years. This is equity replacing debt.