![dek](https://content.time.com/time/photoessays/2009/top10_bankruptcies/thornburg.jpg)
2009
$36.5 billion in assets
Thornburg Mortgage declared bankruptcy after struggling to find investors to fund its core business: providing expensive mortgage loans to well-credited buyers. With home sales down dramatically and defaults on the rise, the value of the company's mortgages fell; after a $1.35 billion bailout from private investors failed to stop the collapse, the company was forced into Chapter 11 on May 1, 2009. Thornburg had previously estimated a loss of $2.75 billion during the first three quarters of 2008.