Mattress Firm Inc. said it plans to file for bankruptcy soon, possibly within days, The Wall Street Journal reported. As part of the bankruptcy filing, a group of bondholders of Mattress Firm’s troubled parent company, Steinhoff International Holdings NV, will inject about $300 million in capital into the retailer. Steinhoff, a South Africa-based retail conglomerate, has been caught up in an accounting scandal that erupted in December. In July, Steinhoff’s creditors, which hold billions of dollars of the company’s bonds, reached a deal with the company suspending all payments on its debt for three years. Mattress Firm, with 3,300 stores and more than $3 billion in annual revenue, has its own problems: declining sales, too many stores, and issues with integrating some big mattress chains it swallowed in recent years. In the first nine months of 2018, Mattress Firm’s sales fell 13 percent from the year-earlier period. The bedding chain also has a problem with overpenetration in certain markets, Steinhoff told its lenders in a presentation last month. Another issue: Tempur Sealy International Inc., a top mattress maker, abandoned Mattress Firm after a dispute over pricing last year. Just before Steinhoff took over Mattress Firm in 2016, the retailer had gobbled up some of its largest peers, including the owner of Sleepy’s and Sleep Train Inc. The company is still working on converting many of the Sleepy’s and Sleep Train locations to the Mattress Firm banner.
