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The legal fallout from a bridge that has been reconstructed continued this month as the owners of the company that developed Crossings Mall in Elkview, W. Va., was sued by a lending company in federal court, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported. The U.S. Bank National Association claims William A. Abruzzino and Rebecca A. Abruzzino, owners of Tara Retail Group, LLC, owe them more than $17.2 million for defaulting on a 2013 loan, according to the complaint in the lawsuit filed Oct. 23 in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York. The loan originally was for $13.65 million, and the association claims Tara Retail breached its guaranty agreement because Tara Retail hasn’t made payments on the loan since July 2016, a month after the June 2016 flood that washed away the bridge, the only public access to Crossings Mall. The association also claims the Georgia-based Tara Retail breached the guaranty agreement by allowing a merchant’s lien against the property in November 2016 without consulting the association. In addition to the $17.2 million associated with the loan, the association is seeking attorneys’ fees, costs and expenses for this lawsuit as well as four other lawsuits in which the association has been involved as a result of Tara Retail’s loan default in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of West Virginia, according to the complaint.

Sears Holdings Corp. drew down the remaining $60 million on a $200 million loan, signaling that the struggling department-store chain is quickly running through cash, Bloomberg News reported. The retailer set up a revised loan on Oct. 4 and borrowed an initial $100 million, according to a filing on Monday. It tapped an additional $40 million on Oct. 18 and then the final $60 million a week later. The run-up to the holiday season can be a capital-intensive period for retailers, as they amass inventory and ready promotions. Sears announced last week that it was reviving its “wish book” catalog in a bid to build buzz. Sears has posted roughly $11 billion in losses over the past six years, forcing the Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based company to offload real estate and sell other assets to stay afloat. It’s also borrowed money from its own chief executive officer, Eddie Lampert, a hedge-fund manager who is also Sears’s biggest investor — and the source of the latest loan. The $200 million loan has an annual interest rate of 11 percent, with Sears’s properties acting as collateral.

More store closings have been announced this year than in any other year before, as retailers across categories have collectively announced plans to close the doors on 6,700 brick-and-mortar locations in the U.S., with many declaring bankruptcy as well, PYMNTS.com reported. Fung Global Retail & Technology, a retail think tank — and the source of the data — found that the prior record, 6,163, was notched during the 2008 financial meltdown. Analysts expect that the downturn could get worse with some predicting as many as 8,600 more brick-and-mortar stores shuttering their doors this year, a figure that would add up to the loss of 147 million square feet of retail space.

True Religion Brand Jeans has exited chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a move that reduces how much the retailer owes while giving it more time to pay it off, the Associated Press reported on Friday. The Los Angeles-based company said on Friday that its debt reorganization plan was approved by a bankruptcy court on Oct. 5. The plan reduces True Religion’s term loans from $471 million to $113.5 million and extends the time when the loans come due to 2022. True Religion filed for chapter 11 protection in July.

Sears Holdings Corp. will no longer sell Whirlpool Corp. appliances after a pricing dispute and changing market dynamics fractured a partnership that stretched back more than a century, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The struggling department store chain has stopped carrying products made by the biggest U.S. appliance manufacturer, including Maytag, KitchenAid and Jenn-Air appliances, according to an internal Sears memo. Sears will deplete Whirlpool inventory currently in its stores, the memo said, but hundreds of items have disappeared from the websites of Sears and Kmart, which is also owned by Sears Holdings.

Vendors to Toys ‘R’ Us have resumed shipping top products, a bankruptcy lawyer said yesterday, allowing the retailer to stock its shelves ahead of the all-important holiday season, Reuters reported. “Inventory is on the shelves,” Joshua Sussberg, an attorney with the company’s law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, said at a U.S. Bankruptcy Court hearing in Richmond, Virginia, adding that the company was well-stocked with the “latest and greatest” in toys. Toys ‘R’ Us generates roughly 40 percent of total revenues in the fourth quarter, and industry experts have expressed concern over the big-box retailer’s ability to retain vendors and customers after its chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on Sept. 19. At the time of the filing, nearly 40 percent of its trade base had stopped shipments. Now, 100 percent of merchandise vendors that supply the top 20 products are actively shipping, followed by 49 of the top 50 vendors and 91 of the top 100, Sussberg said. Read more. 

Sussberg is among the honorees for ABI’s inaugural “40 under 40” class. Click here to view the rest of the honorees who will be recognized at a special luncheon at ABI’s upcoming Winter Leadership Conference. 

Retailers may be doling out in-store discounts, but when it comes to credit cards, they’re increasingly charging more, the Washington Post reported on Saturday. Interest rates on store cards, which have been inching up for years, now average about 25 percent, according to data from CreditCards.com, part of an online credit card marketplace. And, for the first time, at least one retail card commands a rate above 30 percent. A card offered by BrandSource, a network of locally owned appliance, electronics and home goods stores, comes with an interest rate of 30.49 percent. Three others — Big Lots, Piercing Pagoda and Zales — have rates of 29.99 percent.

The bankruptcy of Toys‘R’Us weakened Hasbro Inc.’s forecasts for the holiday season in otherwise strong third-quarter results on Monday, boding ill for a sector worried by the collapse of a major customer, Reuters reported. The Amazon-fueled move away from brick-and-mortar retailing was behind the surprise filing last month by Toys‘R’Us, which left Hasbro exposed to the tune of $60 million in unsecured claims for payment. The U.S. toymaker, which was selling about 9 percent of its total inventory through Toys‘R’Us stores, said third-quarter profit rose 3 percent and revenue 7 percent — above analysts’ estimates — even as the bankruptcy began to hurt operations. Hasbro’s estimate for the fourth quarter of an increase of 4 to 7 percent over last year’s $1.63 billion, however, was below Wall Street expectations. “We continue to work closely with Toys‘R’Us as we head into the holiday period,” Hasbro’s Chief Executive Brian Goldner said in a statement.

The owner of casual Italian dining chain Romano’s Macaroni Grill filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday with a plan to slash it debt and to reorganize around its top restaurants, the Wall Street Journal reported. The chain’s parent company and a handful of affiliates, including investment vehicle Mac Acquisition LLC, filed for chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. In court papers, Chief Executive Nishant Machado blamed the chain’s financial woes on the downturn in the casual dining industry as customers have shifted to cheaper, faster alternatives. The chain owns 93 restaurants in 23 states and employs approximately 4,600 people. It brought in revenue of approximately $230 million last year. RedRock Partners, LLC bought the chain for $8 million in 2015. Since then, Machado said, the company has struggled to service its debt. So far this year the chain has closed 37 unprofitable restaurants.