Part of the issue is that somehow you can buy just the "assets" half of a company and ignore the "liabilities" portion. And the assets include all the branding and brand name. So an essentially new copy of the previous company is made while fleecing all on the liabilities side.

For the bars that are being closed, they are less closed and more like abandoned remnants of the now-dead previous company. Perhaps the shareholders should just reclaim the abandoned items of value physically.