David’s Bridal LLC has received a tentative going-concern bid that would keep more than 190 stores open, spurring optimism that the wedding dress retailer might be able to survive bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported. The deal would also keep more than 7,000 jobs by staving off mass store closures, lawyers for the company said in a bankruptcy court hearing Tuesday. The bid deadline has been extended to July 3 and a new sale hearing is scheduled for July 14. “We think the opportunity to save 7,000 jobs and over 190 stores is fantastic for the vendors and the landlords,” Brad Sandler, an attorney representing the company’s official creditor committee, said during the hearing. Price and precise terms of the offer were not disclosed. David’s entered bankruptcy with nearly 300 stores.
A U.S. bankruptcy judge yesterday approved Overstock.com's $21.5 million purchase of Bed Bath & Beyond's brand name, intellectual property and ecommerce platform, Reuters reported. Bankruptcy Judge Vincent Papalia approved the sale at a court hearing in Newark, New Jersey, saying that he was "gratified" to see a bidder emerge that would preserve Bed Bath & Beyond's brand. Overstock emerged as the winning bidder for the company's intellectual property in a deal worth $21.5 million, court filings showed on Thursday. Bed Bath & Beyond stores and inventory are not part of the deal. Once a storied retailer, Bed Bath & Beyond filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April after struggling for years with dwindling sales and a failed merchandising strategy. Bed Bath & Beyond is hosting a separate auction starting tomorrow for its Buy Buy Baby chain, which sells products for infants and toddlers. The Buy Buy Baby assets have attracted interest from investment firms Go Global Retail and Sixth Street Partners, according to media reports.
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.
Online retailer Overstock.com has won the auction for some assets of Bed Bath & Beyond, including the bankrupt home goods chain's intellectual property and mobile platform, for $21.5 million, court filings showed today, Reuters reported. Last week, Overstock had offered to buy those assets for the same price under a "stalking horse" bid. Bed Bath & Beyond had then said it would continue to solicit other offers. While Bed Bath & Beyond's stores are not part of the deal, it will include the retailer's business data and publicity rights. Overstock will also assume certain liabilities related to transferred contracts. The sale is subject to approval by the bankruptcy court at a hearing on Tuesday.
A South Florida tanning salon chain filed for chapter 11 reorganization in U.S. District Court on June 19 with more than $1 million in debt, the South Florida Business Journal reported. Stanley Olszewski, managing member of Master III LLC, which does business as Copper Tan USA, submitted a 39-page voluntary petition listing $1,072,897.92 in total liabilities and $118,372.66 in property assets for five Palm Beach County salons in Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Wellington and West Palm Beach. The petition listed the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) as the company's largest creditor, with $650,000 in disputed total claims. According to the SBA, the West Palm Beach-based company received a combined total of $249,840 in two rounds of Payment Protection Program loans from Wells Fargo in May 2020 on behalf of 33 jobs. Despite this, Copper Tan stated in its case management summary that its tanning salons were unable to generate sales following the pandemic and incurred too much debt.
Bed Bath & Beyond’s top lender is preparing for a possible bid for at least some of the bankrupt home-goods retailer’s assets, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Sixth Street Partners is planning to use more than $500 million of its debt in the company to bid, the lender’s lawyer David Hillman said in a bankruptcy-court hearing Wednesday. Sixth Street plans to bid in the form of debt forgiveness in the event that other offers for Bed Bath & Beyond’s assets come up less than what it considers satisfactory. Sixth Street, the retailer’s biggest lender, could seek to acquire the Buybuy Baby chain or all of the retailer’s assets out of bankruptcy. Bed Bath & Beyond has been in talks with Go Global Retail, the owner of children’s apparel retailer Janie and Jack, to acquire Buybuy Baby and keep the chain operating, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month. Sixth Street replaced JPMorgan Chase, Bed Bath’s former senior lender, and secured the rights as lead creditor to bid using its debt holdings, Hillman said at Wednesday’s hearing. Top lenders have the right to take over the assets of a bankrupt borrower as a way to satisfy their claims. JPMorgan has been paid out in full and is expected to resign as the agent on a prebankruptcy loan by the end of the week, a lawyer representing the lender said in court.
The Rockport Co. said on Thursday that it has filed chapter 11 bankruptcy in a U.S. District Court in Delaware and will put itself up for sale, FootwearNews.com reported. According to the footwear brand, its subsidiaries CB Marathon Midco, LLC, Rockport IP Holdings, LLC, Rockport UK Holdings Ltd. and CB Footwear Services, LLC have also joined in the bankruptcy filing. Rockport said that it’s taking this motion in order to “review and restructure” its assets for the benefit of all stakeholders and to better position the brand for future growth opportunities. As part of the bankruptcy, Rockport said it also intends to file a motion seeking authorization to pursue an auction and sale process. The proposed bidding procedures, if approved by the court, would require interested parties to submit binding offers to acquire Rockport’s assets.
The government’s pandemic-era pause on student-debt payments allowed millions of Americans to forget about a big monthly bill for more than three years. Now some Americans face a serious reckoning—and so do the places where they spend their money, the Wall Street Journal reported. Around 43 million people in the U.S., some 17% of the adult population, have federal student debt. Out of those borrowers, roughly 26.6 million—or about 10% of the adult population—had loans in forbearance as of the first quarter, according to the National Student Loan Data System. This was thanks to the federal government’s suspension of payments and interest accrual starting in March 2020. That pause is ending Aug. 30, as part of the bipartisan debt-ceiling deal signed in early June. While the Biden administration’s student-loan forgiveness program would have shaved off a big portion of that debt, it has a slim chance of surviving a Supreme Court challenge. The administration is said to be weighing a grace period during which borrowers who miss payments won’t be referred to delinquency, as the Wall Street Journal reported. That would delay the eventual impact of the resumption of student-loan payments by about three months to a year. The hit to household cash flows as a result of the resumption could be substantial: Bank of America Institute estimates it might be around $180 a month for the median impacted household. In a 2017 survey conducted by the Federal Reserve, the median monthly student-loan payment was $222 and the average was $393. Estimates vary, but even on conservative expectations, borrowers are set to collectively resume paying $5 billion to $8 billion a month once the pause is lifted.
