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Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. said it will try to sell up to $300 million of common stock in the open market while terminating a fundraising deal with hedge fund Hudson Bay Capital Management LP in the latest effort by the troubled home-goods retailer to stave off bankruptcy, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The Union, N.J.-based company broke off its equity-raising deal with Hudson Bay after reporting another sharp drop in sales in the most recent quarter. Bed Bath & Beyond also said that if its public offering fails to come through, the company expects to file for bankruptcy protection, likely wiping out holders of its common stock. Shares slumped 26% Thursday to hit an all-time low of 59 cents. The company now has a market capitalization of roughly $70 million. The new low caps a stark reversal from August when a burst of bullish interest from retail investors pushed the stock over $23, reminiscent of the dizzying rallies of other meme stocks like AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. and GameStop Corp. The company’s hopes of avoiding chapter 11 ride on selling more shares to keep itself afloat as its sales erode and it closes hundreds of stores. New financing is crucial for the company to stock up inventory and pay down debt as it tries to turn around its business, which has deteriorated since consumers reacted poorly to a strategy shift away from brand-name products.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. secured a short-term agreement from key equity investor Hudson Bay Capital Management LP to keep their fundraising agreement intact despite a possible price failure that may have occurred because the stock dropped below $1 this week, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The temporary stock-price waiver will be until the morning of April 3, which will enable Bed Bath & Beyond to continue to raise money from its agreement with the hedge fund, which exercises warrants to continue purchasing preferred convertible shares. So far the company has raised at least $360 million through this arrangement and said that it expects to raise another $100 million in April.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc.’s shares fell 21% Monday after the retailer disclosed substantial dilution from a recent equity deal, potentially preventing it from raising more money from a crucial investor, hedge fund Hudson Bay Capital Management LP, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The home-goods retailer’s stock closed at 81 cents Monday, after it said Friday that the number of its common shares had nearly tripled to at least 335 million as of March 15 from 117 million as of late January. The number of shares outstanding ballooned because investors including Hudson Bay have been converting their preferred shares into new common shares in recent weeks as the result of the complex equity deal the company struck last month. Those investors put in an initial $225 million and agreed to fund an additional $800 million over 10 months provided that certain conditions are met, including Bed Bath & Beyond maintaining a certain volume-weighted-average price threshold for its stock. The company raised an additional $135 million through the deal as of March 7, bringing the total amount raised to at least $360 million.

One of the Pittsburgh region’s largest minority-owned businesses has filed for bankruptcy protection at the same time that it faces a sexual harassment lawsuit involving a minor, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Rice Enterprises, the operator of eight McDonald’s locations across the Pittsburgh region, filed the chapter 11 petition last week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The documents signed by Rice Enterprises LLC’s sole member, Michele Rice, show that the bankruptcy was filed to preserve the company’s franchise agreements and leases. It is also to “restructure its debt obligations, provide breathing space, time to reduce litigation expenses and maximize the value of its estate.” The attorney representing Rice Enterprises, Kirk Burkley of the Pittsburgh law firm Bernstein-Burkley, P.C., said the bankruptcy filing will not affect the restaurants’ operations and all 435 jobs are safe.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. isn’t paying severance to employees at stores across the U.S. that it has recently said will close, according to current and former staff members, a sign the retailer is trying to save cash to stabilize its floundering business, Bloomberg News reported. Bed Bath & Beyond executives told staffers around early February that they are rolling out an additional round of store closings and informed workers at those locations that they wouldn’t receive severance, according to internal correspondence and documents seen by Bloomberg News, along with the current and former employees. Bed Bath & Beyond has offered to make a lump-sum payment to some higher-level employees who stay through closing, including $2,000 for store managers and $1,500 for assistant store managers, according to some of the current staff members and an internal company document. Those payments, though, would likely never materialize if the retailer were to file for bankruptcy protection in the interim. Workers’ unpaid checks become unsecured claims in a bankruptcy scenario, taking a back seat in repayment priority to other debts owed by the company.

America’s consumers trimmed their spending in February after a buying burst in January, underscoring the volatility of the economic environment, the Associated Press reported. The government said yesterday that retail sales slipped 0.4% after jumping a revised 3.2% in January, helped by an increase in auto sales. Retail sales were down in November and December, the critical holiday period. The February retail sales figure was weighed down by a 1.8% drop in auto sales as well as declines at restaurants and stores selling furniture and clothing. Excluding autos, sales slipped 0.1% from January, according to the Commerce Department. Sales at furniture stores fell 2.5%, while business at restaurants declined 2.2% in February from January. Sales at department stores slid 4%. But shoppers spent more online and at electronics stores, health and beauty stores and food retailers, according to the report.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a $5.6 billion antitrust class-action settlement with more than 12 million retailers that accused Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. of improperly fixing credit and debit card fees, Reuters reported. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected claims that a class action should not have been certified because of confusion over who deserved compensation, and that the $523 million of legal fees awarded to the retailers' lawyers was too high. Among the objectors were a group of gas station operators for oil companies such as Chevron and Shell. The operators and the companies both claimed to have been injured after accepting Visa and MasterCard for gas sales. Judge Dennis Jacobs said that although their dispute may need to be resolved in court, it was "no reason" to delay payouts to other class members.

AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. on Tuesday won shareholders’ backing to sell new common stock, a financial lifeline for the movie-theater chain as it continues to lose money because of low cinema attendance, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Shareholders voted to increase the number of common shares that AMC can sell, an important tool for the company to stay afloat and potentially weather a downturn in the cinema industry that has pushed some competitors into bankruptcy. The shareholder vote also authorized a 10-for-1 reverse stock split and will likely allow AMC to convert its Ape preferred units into common shares. The Ape units closed at $1.62, down 6%, after having rallied earlier in the day, while AMC common shares fell 15% to close at $4.64. “The surest way to combat naysayers and prophets of doom is to keep our cash reserves robust, manage our balance sheet smartly, and operate our company as best we know how,” Chief Executive Adam Aron said on a conference call with shareholders yesterday. AMC’s revenue has rebounded from the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the company posted a net loss of nearly $1 billion for 2022. It had $631 million of cash on its balance sheet as of Dec. 31, down from close to $1.6 billion at the end of 2021.