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Some of the biggest growth in brick-and-mortar stores is coming from discount retailers, like TJX, the parent company of T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, the New York Times reported. In August, TJX said that over the “long term” there was an opportunity to open as many as 5,600 stores, up from the 1,700 the retailer currently operates. “We continue to see store openings as an attractive investment and a very good use of capital,” said Ernie Herrman, the company’s chief executive. While discounters like TJX operate in a sort of an oasis, many other retailers face a conundrum. While retailers are plowing more money into their digital operations, they risk rendering their stores even less attractive to shoppers by starving them of investment. “The big challenge is how do you get customers to come into a store if they don’t have to,” said Melina Cordero, head of retail research for Americas at CBRE, the real estate firm. Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, has slowed its brick-and-mortar expansion, though it continues to open stores, particularly smaller format ones. The company is also using its vast store network — located in nearly every corner of the country — to support its e-commerce business.

Brookfield Property Partners LP bid about $14.8 billion to acquire the stake it doesn’t already hold in U.S. mall owner GGP Inc. as the companies seek to repurpose struggling bricks-and-mortar shopping centers, Bloomberg News reported today. The firm offered $23 a share for the 66 percent of GGP it doesn’t own, Brookfield said in a statement on Monday. That represents a premium of about 21 percent to Chicago-based GGP’s closing price on Nov. 6, the day before Bloomberg News reported Brookfield had held discussions about taking the company private. GGP said in a separate statement that its board has formed a special committee to review the proposal. In the third quarter, Brookfield Property exercised all of its outstanding warrants in GGP, bringing its ownership stake to 34 percent from 29 percent, the company said in a statement earlier this month. The 68 million shares were purchased for $462 million.

Teen fashion retailer Styles For Less Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection, the latest apparel retailer to file following declining sales, Reuters reported. The Anaheim, Calif.-based company listed assets and liabilities between $10 million and $50 million in its filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Central District of California on Monday. The company listed wholesale suppliers such as Vivace and Ambiance among its biggest creditors. Styles For Less sells women’s clothes and accessories at about 100 stores in malls and outlets in California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Florida, according to its website. The retailer planned to reorganize its debt during the bankruptcy, and was seeking a loan to fund it through the process, Reuters had reported last week.

The rising number of retailer bankruptcies has helped fuel $15.5 billion of DIP loans this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. It’s making 2017 one of the busiest years for DIP loans since the Great Recession. “It’s a place to put your dollars short-term with a nice yield,” said Shap Smith, head of restructuring finance at Citigroup Inc. “It’s a great alternative to the more traditional market, which can be expensive.” Toys ‘R’ Us filed for chapter 11 in September after a squeeze by its vendors left it unable to manage its $5 billion debt load. Lenders including Franklin Resources Inc. and Marathon Asset Management vied to provide $3.1 billion of DIP loans that are helping to keep the retailer’s shelves stocked through the holidays while refinancing some of its existing debt. In one $450 million piece of the debt, demand from investors allowed the retailer to cut its proposed borrowing rate by 0.75 percentage point to 6.75 percentage points more than the London interbank offered rate (for a total of about 8.1 percent currently). That will potentially save America’s biggest toy seller about $4.4 million in interest over the life of the borrowing, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Soft serve ice cream chain Dairy Queen shuttered the doors of 22 underperforming locations in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico after a Texas-based franchisee, Vasari LLC, announced it has filed for chapter 11 protection, FoxBusiness.com reported yesterday. Vasari, who owns more than 75 locations, said the move comes as the company begins its restructuring plan to create a “smaller but financially stronger company” after many of its locations were negatively impacted by low oil prices and temporary store closures caused by Hurricane Harvey earlier this fall. Dairy Queen, which is owned by International Dairy Queen, Inc, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) told FOX Business in a statement that “this was the decision of the individual franchisee." According to CBS affiliate KLBK, Vasari had a debt between $10 million and $50 million and the bankruptcy will allow the company to reorganize its debt instead of having a liquidation.

The sudden bankruptcy of Toys ‘R’ Us has retailers, especially those at the low end of the credit spectrum, reassessing if they too are vulnerable to a vendor squeeze around the holidays, according to a WSJ Pro Bankruptcy commentary today. The speed with which Toys collapsed into chapter 11 after its vendors tightened payment terms is a wake-up call to retailers to reassess their liquidity to avoid a similar fate, according to a report issued on Wednesday by Moody’s Investors Service. “We think this is part of a broader crisis of confidence that could start to spread to other highly leveraged, lower-rated retailers,” Moody’s said. Vendors are typically the first pressure point when a brick-and-mortar retailer’s finances are stretched too thin, according to the commentary. Most retailers’ shelves are well-stocked for at least the first half of the holiday-shopping season, Moody’s said, but what is unknown “and potentially very difficult to determine” is whether they will be able to maintain “reloading” relationships for the later stages.

The owners of the Z'Tejas restaurant chain hope to reorganize the business two years after acquiring it, according to a chapter 11 bankruptcy petition filed on  Monday, AZCentral.com reported. Cornbread Ventures LP, a partnership based in Austin, filed to reorganize the business in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Phoenix. The filing followed the closing of four of the Southwestern-inspired restaurants and the collapse of acquisition/investment talks with an unnamed British company. The company will reorganize around five strong-performing restaurants — three in Arizona and two in Austin. The group's four other restaurants have closed.

Teen fashion retailer Styles For Less Inc. is preparing to file for bankruptcy, a lawyer for the company said yesterday, Reuters reported. Styles For Less, based in Anaheim, Calif., will file for bankruptcy in the coming days, said Marc Winthrop, a senior partner at law firm Winthrop Couchot Golubow Hollander LLP, which is representing the company. The chain sells women’s clothes and accessories at about 100 stores in malls, outlets and strip centers across California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Florida, according to its website. The retailer plans to reorganize its debt during bankruptcy, and is seeking a loan to fund it through the process, Winthrop said. Styles For Less, which has close to 600 employees, will file in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court’s Central District of California, Winthrop added.