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American Apparel is preparing to open a flagship store in its home city later this year, its first foray back into brick-and-mortar shops after all its locations closed following a bankruptcy process, Bloomberg News reported. New owner Gildan Activewear Inc., the Montreal-based company that bought American Apparel but not the physical stores in an auction last year, said that the new location will complement e-commerce operations and serve as an incubator to gauge trends. The new store will open in the fourth quarter at a defunct American Apparel location on Melrose Avenue that was once the biggest in California. It will be slightly smaller and allow customers “to take part in the full American Apparel experience beyond just buying products,” said Gildan spokesman Garry Bell.

When popular footwear seller Toms Shoes LLC scored a $313 million investment from private equity giant Bain Capital back in 2014, the retailer was poised to grow in a serious way. Four years later, Toms is squirming under a load of debt and struggling to attract new shoppers, according to a Bloomberg News commentary. Earnings are down by more than half since the Bain deal, and the shoemaker is burning through cash, rating agencies warn. Last year, Toms replaced its longtime finance chief with Deb Rieger-Paganis, a director from corporate advisory and restructuring firm AlixPartners LLP. In December, the company asked Bain for an additional $18 million to support daily operations. While Toms booked $91 million of revenue in the fourth quarter, according to a person familiar with the data, only $8 million of it was profit. The revenue figure did represent an increase over the prior year, but it fell short of where investors thought Toms would be by now, according to the commentary.

An "Iron Chef" from Philadelphia has announced he's filing for bankruptcy and selling his restaurant empire, the Associated Press reported. Jose Garces filed for chapter 11 protection on Wednesday and a Louisiana hospitality company has offered to buy the Garces Group for $5 million. Garces gained fame after winning the second season of Food Network's "The Next Iron Chef." The 45-year-old has previously blamed his financial collapse on the closing of Atlantic City's Revel casino and the four restaurants he operated there and the closing of the Amada location he opened in New York. Garces says his restaurants will operate as usual, and he expects few job cuts once Ballard Brands takes over. The deal is expected to close in 45 to 60 days.

U.S. mall owners are fighting back after a bumpy start to the year — with more than 90 million square feet of retail space already slated to go back on the market in 2018, according to data from CoStar Group, CNBC.com reported. "2018 will be a difficult year for CBL," CBL Properties CEO Stephen Lebovitz said last week. He said that CBL's first-quarter financial results were hit hardest by a wave of bankruptcies and store closures to round out last year, which also flowed into the start of 2018. In the latest quarter, CBL's occupancy rate dropped slightly to 91.1 percent from 92.1 percent a year ago. CBL's portfolio remains the least productive in the mall space, with tenant sales on average of $376 per square foot. Next in line is Washington Prime Group, which said sales at its tier-one assets were $401 per square foot during the first quarter, while sales at tier-two centers were $286 per square foot. "Since 2014, we have had approximately 2.3 million square feet, or nearly 10 percent of inline space, succumb to the black-cloaked, scythe-wielding grim reaper of bankruptcy," WPG CEO Lou Conforti told analysts and investors last week. Read more. 

Occupancy issues are at the heart of many significant retail cases, as detailed in the ABI publication Retail and Office Bankruptcy: Landlord/Tenant Rights, available at the ABI Store. 

Oaktree Capital Management LP, a debt investor in Claire’s Stores Inc., is criticizing how the retailer is marketing its assets in bankruptcy court, saying the sale timeline is so short that potential new bids might not reflect improvements to its operations, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The seller of accessories and jewelry aimed at girls and young women entered bankruptcy in March with a reorganization plan already blessed by private-equity owner Apollo Global Management LLC and major first-lien debtholders. From the start, Oaktree opposed the deal, saying holders of $240 million in second-lien notes have been unfairly shut out of the negotiations, which could pave the way for first-lien creditors to control of the company when it leaves bankruptcy. The Los Angeles-based investment firm owns 72 percent of Claire’s second-lien debt and has said that it would get nothing in the reorganization. Oaktree also said Apollo’s proposed role in the reorganized Claire’s should come under particular scrutiny since, besides being Claire’s equity owner now, it also owns first-lien debt that could be converted into equity in the new company.

Toys “R” Us (Canada) Ltd said on Friday that it received U.S. and Canadian court approval to sell itself to Prem Watsa’s Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited, Reuters reported. The sale, which also includes Babies “R” Us stores in Canada, is expected to close this quarter, the company said.

Many of America’s biggest retailers, under assault from Amazon.com Inc., have been slashing staff even faster than they have been closing stores, a dynamic that has left fewer clerks and longer checkout lines at remaining locations, the Wall Street Journal reported. Despite operating roughly the same number of stores as it did a decade ago, Macy’s Inc. has shed 52,000 workers since 2008. At J.C. Penney Co., workers have disappeared twice as fast as department stores. That’s led to an average of 112 total Penney employees for every store today, down from 145 a decade ago, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Similar per-store staff declines occurred over the past decade at Kohl’s Corp., Nordstrom Inc., Target Corp. and Walmart Inc., regardless of whether the retailer opened or closed stores. The employment figures are for all full- and part-time staff and don’t distinguish between store, warehouse or headquarters workers. Industry executives say store employees make up the vast majority of retailers’ workforce.

For decades, Ronco was the king of infomercials with famous products like the Showtime Rotisserie, the Ronco Food Dehydrator, and of course the famed Veg-O-Matic, which slices, dices, and makes julienned fries. Now the iconic infomercial company has filed for bankruptcy after failing to secure funding through an IPO, the San Diego Union Tribune reported. Ronco founder and spokesperson Ron Popeil created the company in the 1960s and became famous on TV for his trademark pitches like, "set it and forget it," and "it slices, it dices!" Most of his products were kitchen items like the Veg-O-Matic, Showtime Rotisserie, Inside-the-Shell Electric Egg Scrambler, a Chop-O-Matic handheld food processor, a five-minute pasta maker, and an electric food dehydrator. Popeil sold the company for close to $60 million in 2005. Ronco has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy after an attempt last year to raise $30 million through an unconventional IPO that offered a 20-percent discount on Ronco products to anybody who purchased more than $1,000 worth of Ronco stock.