what happens if you own preference shares in a company that goes bankrupt 
if a company goes bankrupt then the different securityholders in that company will have claim to the company s assets the order in which those securityholders receive their share of the assets will depend on the specific rights given to them in their security agreements preference shares for instance will generally have priority over the common shares and will therefore be paid before the common shareholders however preference shares will generally have lower priority than corporate bonds debentures or other fixed income securities 2