A retail venture that built a business giving second life to famous brands like RadioShack and Pier 1 Imports after they closed their stores in bankruptcy now faces its own financial struggles and has hired restructuring lawyers, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Retail Ecommerce Ventures LLC, known for reviving distressed retail brands as online-only businesses, has been working with lawyers from Kirkland & Ellis LLP to explore options including a financial restructuring, people familiar with the matter said. The firm, founded by entrepreneurs Alex Mehr and Tai Lopez, recently told its investors it would pause payments on its debt, according to a lawsuit filed against it earlier this week. Retail Ecommerce Ventures also is working with investment bank Piper Sandler Cos. and financial adviser Riveron Consulting LLC. The bankruptcies of a handful of retailers at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic provided the firm with the opportunity to snap up a number of national and regional brands in 2020, including Pier 1, Modell’s Sporting Goods and Stein Mart. The firm’s founding entrepreneurs cast Retail Ecommerce as a way to leverage the brands into new, online-only businesses that would live on after they closed down their bricks-and-mortar stores. The firm allegedly reneged on a $5.3 million deal to buy GetSwift Inc., a workforce management and logistics software company, out of chapter 11 in October, according to a lawsuit filed on Monday by GetSwift’s bankruptcy lawyers. Retail Ecommerce pulled out of the agreement after informing investors that it would suspend payments on its notes and preferred shares, the lawsuit said.
