In a world fixated on growth and expansion, it is easy to forget that companies — no matter their size or seeming impregnability — routinely close their doors, or have them forcibly closed, for the final time. Think of Lehman Brothers, Enron, Andersen, WorldCom, Barings, Digital, PanAm and many thousands of others.  A while ago we took a look and found that, in a typical four weeks, eight public companies with assets of more than $1 billion filed for bankruptcy in the United States.

As the names and numbers above demonstrate, long-term corporate survival isn’t easy. Some die relatively . . .