Sino-Forest Corporation has caved in one day before the March 31st deadline to submit a restructuring plan and has filed for protection from creditors under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act in Mississauga, Canada essentially putting up the Hong Kong headquartered and Ontario based timber company bankrupt and up for sale.

The once great company started to decline after short seller Carson Block, founder of Muddy Waters Research, released damning reports that stated Sino-Forest was allegedly exaggerating and distorting its sales, earnings and assets just last June.

Despite Sino-Forest’s insistence on innocence, the company’s shares plummeted over an astounding 80% which came with high profile cases of prominent investors abandoning their own shares.

Overall, Sino-Forest lost approximately 3 billion U.S. dollars.

Sino-Forest was soon after downgraded by Standard & Poors from a corporate credit rating of BB to B+ which was then followed by yet another downgrade to a B.

Due to its inability to produce results from its own private investigation, which costed more than 50 million U.S. dollars and 8 months of time, into fraud allegations along with being hammered by financial failures, Sino-Forest’s shares were suspended in August 2011 by the Ontario Securities Commission.

Fortune did not blush for Sino-Forest when news surfaced that the company missed a payment on convertible bonds this past December.

Sino-Forest was forced to concede several things to its bondholders including a high degree of control over the company which includes the appointment of top executives and influence on numerous dealings and transactions.

Sino-Forest spokespeople have confirmed that the company will still be launching a lawsuit against Muddy Waters Research in an attempt to recover 4 billion U.S. dollars worth of financial damage.

(Cover Photo: William Todd)