Specialty gift retailer Things Remembered Inc. has hired financial advisers less than two years after a debt restructuring, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Berkeley Research Group Inc. and Stifel Financial Corp.’s restructuring advisory arm, Miller Buckfire & Co., have been engaged to evaluate the company’s operations and another debt restructuring. Although discussions are still ongoing and strategic options are being evaluated, a bankruptcy filing may occur in early 2019. Although Things Remembered went through a debt restructuring in 2016, the troubled retailer is still in need of cutting more debt and likely needs to close stores, the people added. The company has less than 400 stores. Things Remembered had hired FTI Consulting Inc. in 2016 prior to the debt restructuring. Soon thereafter, a group of FTI’s bankers left the firm for BRG, and continue to work with Things Remembered. The Highland Heights, Ohio-based company had completed a debt-for-equity swap that left it in the hands of its lenders in the summer of 2016. At the time Things Remembered had suffered from consecutive quarters of declining sales and was weighed down by a $178 million debt load that stemmed from a leveraged buyout in 2012 by private-equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners.
