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Carvana Co. is staring down rising interest payments each of the next three months with vehicle sales and earnings moving in the wrong direction, Bloomberg News reported. The $7.61-a-share loss the used-car retailer registered last quarter was more than triple the deficit analysts were expecting. Coming off its lowest retail unit sales in two years, Carvana forecast another drop in the first three months of this year, as it shrinks inventory and slashes marketing spending. After making an ill-timed acquisition just as sales and used-car prices took a turn, the once rapidly growing retailer is “firmly in retreat mode,” Kevin Tynan, a Bloomberg Intelligence auto analyst, said in a note. Carvana shares tumbled 15% at 9:39 a.m. Friday in New York. The quarterly loss reported after the close Thursday caps a disastrous year in which Carvana’s stock plummeted 98%, erasing almost almost $37 billion of market capitalization. While the shares more than doubled this year through Thursday, Bloomberg Intelligence credit analyst Joel Levington cautioned ahead of the earnings that the move mirrored what occurred at Hertz Global Holdings Inc. before the car-rental company filed for bankruptcy in 2020. Carvana’s biggest problem is its debt, which stands at more than $8 billion with $2.4 billion in cash burn projected over the next two years, according to Levington. Carvana, which carries credit ratings in the CCC tier, faces a tough environment if it were to try to sell more corporate bonds. The company has more than $5 billion of debt that trades distressed, among the biggest piles of troubled securities in the world. Some of Carvana’s largest creditors have banded together in an effort to secure more favorable terms ahead of a potential debt restructuring.

Apartment rents fell in every major metropolitan area in the U.S. over the past six months through January, a trend that is poised to continue as the biggest delivery of new apartments in nearly four decades is slated for this year, the Wall Street Journal reported. Renters with new leases in January paid a median rent that was 3.5% lower than they would have paid last August, according to estimates from listing website Apartment List. It was the first time in five years that rent fell every month over a six-month period, according to the same estimates. Four other market measures by housing-data companies also show that new-lease rents either fell or remained flat in January compared with the previous month, extending a streak of monthly rent declines that began at the end of the summer. The softening rental market follows an unprecedented run for the apartment and home-rental industry put into motion by the pandemic. Pent-up demand for housing exploded in the months after the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines in late 2020 and a surge in people searching for apartments lifted rents 25% over two years.

The day-trading die hards who once rallied behind Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. appear to have abandoned the struggling retailer, Bloomberg News reported. A little more than two weeks after the company received a financial rescue to keep it out of bankruptcy, its shares have lost 74% of their value, falling in 11 of the past 12 days. That’s pushing them back toward the three-decade low hit in early January. That $225 million lifeline from a group led by hedge fund Hudson Bay Capital Management has promised to significantly increase the number of shares outstanding and was structured to allow the new investors to profit as long as the stock holds above 71.6 cents. Rather than spurring optimism about the company’s survival, the deal has has hit individual investors who once piled in when the stock traded above $20 — a far cry from Wednesday’s $1.62 close. It lost over 5% more soon after the market’s open Thursday.

More than a month after announcing it would be filing for bankruptcy, Window Select entered chapter 11 bankruptcy Feb. 17 against nearly 1,000 creditors, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. North Carolina-based consulting firm Cogent Analytics, which has assumed management of the company, is still planning to fulfill contracts to more than 850 customers, according to a statement released by the company's communication team led by Mueller Communications. The decision to enter into chapter 11 bankruptcy comes after hundreds of customers claimed they'd been scammed after purchasing windows and doors that were never delivered. Over the past year, dozens of customers and contractors from across Wisconsin have filed suits against the company. Among the customers and vendors who are owed the largest amount of money are Illinois-based Climate Solutions Windows & Doors, who say Window Select owes them more than a million dollars for custom projects, according to the filing. Media companies iHeartMedia + Entertainment and Scripps Media, Inc. are both owed around $140,000; Sinclair Broadcast Group is owed about $12,000, according to the filing.

Things were already looking scary for investors of used-car retailer Carvana after a grim third-quarter earnings call in November. Then its stock fell 43% to $3.85 following reports in December that implied the company could be steering toward a restructuring, according to a em>Wall Street Journal commentary. It was reported in early December that Carvana was working with its legal counsel to evaluate restructuring options and that its creditors signed cooperation agreements to ensure they work in unison if the company attempts to raise new debt. Since that scare, though, Carvana’s stock had inexplicably gained 162% through Thursday’s close, alongside other meme-stock favorites. The company’s fourth-quarter results, released late Thursday, were even more frightening. Carvana said that its revenue fell 24% during the period compared with a year earlier. Its net loss widened to a record $1.4 billion, nearly eight times the net loss it saw a year earlier and a lot worse than the $426 million loss analysts polled by FactSet expected to see. Fourth-quarter cash burn (or negative free cash flow) of $800 million brought its 2022 total to roughly $1.8 billion — nearly its current market value. Guidance for the first quarter doesn’t look pretty, either. The company said it expects a sequential reduction in the number of cars sold in the current quarter as it tries to contain marketing costs and inventory size; Wall Street had been expecting it to increase. Carvana’s heavily shorted shares declined by a relatively mild 3.7% in after-hours trading following the earnings call.

As Party City Holdco Inc. wades through bankruptcy, some of its most important vendors are banding together to negotiate better trade terms for a holiday the company relies on: Halloween, Bloomberg News reported. Halloween orders are placed months ahead of time, meaning costume suppliers have to decide soon what they’re willing to ship to the bankrupt party supplier and on what terms. But with the company’s future still in the hands of a federal judge, some suppliers are wary of waiting until after the holiday to get paid for their goods. “It’s crunch time,” said Jason Torf, an attorney representing the group. “The goal of the committee is to support Party City, but in a way that protects these vendors.” New Jersey-based Party City has proposed paying the vendors two months after Halloween, by Dec. 31, according to Torf. That months-long wait puts vendors in a precarious position: taking on millions of dollars of risk without a guarantee of how the company’s restructuring will unfold. What’s more, Party City still owes some suppliers money from pre-bankruptcy shipments, court papers show. The newly formed vendor group is tied to the Halloween & Costume Association, a trade group, and includes some of the biggest Halloween suppliers in the country, according to Torf. It was formed in part to talk with the company about an agreement that ensures protection in case Party City runs out of money.

Consumers spent more than $86.6 billion at restaurants in the month of January, up 24% compared to the same month in 2022, per the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, YahooFinance.com reported. Spending on groceries, beer, wine, and liquor were up 5.3%, totaling about $78.9 billion last month. This comes as the cost of food away from home outpaced the cost of buying groceries. Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) January Consumer Price Index (CPI), the cost of groceries were up 11.8% year-over-year, while dining away from home was up 8.2%. Despite menu price increases to offset inflation at many restaurants and fast food chains, customers seem to be turning a blind eye to rising prices after being cooped up during COVID. According to the Mastercard Spending Pulse survey, U.S. consumers said dining out is a priority, with demand for it growing 24.2% year over year.

Troubled discount home-goods retailer Tuesday Morning Corp. will close more than half its locations nationwide after filing for chapter 11 protection for the second time in three years, MarketWatch.com reported. The company filed for bankruptcy on Feb. 14, with Chief Executive Andrew Berger citing “exceedingly burdensome debt.” The company said it has secured a $51.5 million debtor-in-possession commitment from Invictus Global Management. “We have determined that the best path to reorganizing and transforming the company begins with a chapter 11 filing,” Berger said in a statement. “Fortunately, we have the support of a committed capital provider in Invictus and a clear vision for transforming into a focused retailer that serves its core heritage markets in a profitable manner.” Tuesday Morning said that it currently operates 487 stores in 40 states, and it employed about 1,600 full-time and 4,700 part-time workers, according to its most recent 10-K filing. The company said that the 263 stores targeted for closure are largely in “low-traffic regions.”

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. executives told suppliers on a video conference call yesterday that the company would pay them in advance for their merchandise or upon delivery, part of the retailer’s effort to win over skittish manufacturers and put the troubled business back on track, Bloomberg News reported. Executives told suppliers that they intend to use funds from a recent equity offering to get more products into the company’s stores. Shelves have been sparse because Bed Bath & Beyond has struggled to pay manufacturers. But the impact won’t be immediate, interim Chief Financial Officer Holly Etlin told suppliers. The home-goods retailer secured an equity offering last week that will potentially allow it to raise as much as $1 billion over time. “While we think that that will be the necessary funding to fund the turnaround, it isn’t all here right now,” Etlin said. “It came in — a small amount up front — and then $100 million a month over the next few months until we get up to the committed amount.” The equity deal is underpinned by anchor investor Hudson Bay Capital Management, a New York-based hedge fund. Bed Bath & Beyond is “prepared to pay” cash in advance or on delivery to suppliers to convince them to sell their products to the retailer, Etlin said during the presentation. Suppliers have been demanding upfront payments for months because they were concerned about not being paid for their goods. But the company — short on cash — hasn’t been able to meet those requests, so many suppliers limited or halted their shipments. “We don’t expect you to come forward immediately, but we hope that we will ultimately restore your trust in us,” said Etlin, a restructuring expert at consulting firm AlixPartners who joined Bed Bath & Beyond last week on a temporary basis.

Bankrupt home-goods retailer Tuesday Morning Corp. has received a $15 million lifeline to support its reorganization effort while its secured lenders push to shut down all 464 of its stores and liquidate its inventory to cash out, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Edward L. Morris of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas on Wednesday allowed investment firm Invictus Global Management LLC to finance the off-price retailer’s bankruptcy process with a $15 million loan, less than a third of the proposed amount of $51.5 million. Judge Morris said the emergency loan is enough to avoid immediate, irreparable harm to the company and its stakeholders until he can determine whether the business has a chance to reorganize under chapter 11 or if it will be better off simply liquidating its inventory. The judge scheduled a hearing in early March to revisit the financing. A restructuring sponsored by Invictus would cut the number of stores by more than half under chapter 11, bringing the company out of bankruptcy with about 200 locations intact. Wells Fargo Bank NA and other secured lenders oppose the retailer’s plans, arguing that an orderly liquidation of inventory would maximize recoveries for creditors compared to a risky reorganization attempt.