Buy Buy Baby, the baby goods retailer owned by Bed Bath & Beyond, has been attracting interest ahead of its bankruptcy-run auction. But suitors are cooling on keeping its stores open, CNBC.com reported. Last week, Bed Bath & Beyond said in court papers there would be a bankruptcy-run auction Wednesday for Buy Buy Baby’s assets. Bed Bath had its own auction this week, with Overstock.com agreeing to buy for the brand’s intellectual property and digital assets. Divvying up the company’s banners into two auctions came as interested buyers continue to weigh offers for Buy Buy Baby, some that included keeping stores open, according to people familiar with the matter, who were not authorized to speak publicly due to the private nature of the negotiations. But as the auction nears, interest in keeping Buy Buy Baby’s stores open has waned. In particular, the expenses behind running the stores – leases, overhead costs, salaries – make it difficult to reach profitability if Buy Buy Baby’s stores were acquired along with its intellectual property, one of the people said. “There’s not a profitable model where you only have 10 stores or 40 stores,” the person said. Buy Buy Baby had approximately 120 stores, according to court papers.
