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RadioShack is going back to basics, but it won’t be taking thousands of Defense Mobile cellphones with it, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. The electronics retailer is looking to unload more than 17,000 Defense Mobile prepaid cellphones to Quality One Wireless for about $1.8 million, according to court papers. Defense Mobile, led by Virgin Mobile USA cofounder Peter Lurie, sells inexpensive cellphones for active duty military service members, their families and veterans on Sprint’s network. At the time of its bankruptcy, RadioShack was the exclusive national retailer for Defense Mobile. “These handsets are a new product offering, and the debtors have not had success selling the handsets in a large volume,” RadioShack lawyers said.

Creditors say that retailer Cache Inc. has been running up bills it can't pay and should be pushed out of chapter 11 into a barebones form of bankruptcy, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The official committee that represents landlords and suppliers to the women's dress and formalwear retailer Wednesday asked a bankruptcy judge to convert Cache's bankruptcy into a chapter 7 case and allow a trustee to take over the proceeding.

RadioShack has emerged from its steady decline with a big new rebirthing plan: Act more like a convenience store, according to a Washington Post analysis today. After the store waved the white flag of chapter 11 bankruptcy in February, its biggest creditor, Salus Capital Partners, fought to liquidate the Shack and squeeze out whatever value the brand had left. But Standard General, a hedge fund, pushed to keep open 1,740 of RadioShack's 4,000 stores, and a Delaware court last week approved the fund's takeover proposal. In its new life, the surviving Shacks plan to drop the unprofitable big-name gadgets — like cameras, laptops and tablets, which shoppers increasingly scooped up online — and the company will rebrand itself as "the premier community destination for consumer electronics," a national bodega of batteries and earbuds.

Fresh Produce Sportswear LLC, a women's clothing retailer based in Boulder, Colo., has filed for chapter 11 protection in the face of what its founder called "significant and material financial challenges,” the Denver Business Journal reported today. Fresh Produce has 27 company stores across the country, but the majority of its locations are in Florida. According to the bankruptcy filing, the company's creditors are Wells Fargo Bank and Irvine, California-based Realty Associates Fund V LLC. These two creditors hold $3.98 million in Fresh Produce's debt, stemming from a bank loan and commercial rent.

A New Jersey-based company with a history of trying to revive struggling businesses has acquired the SkyMall catalog out of bankruptcy, the Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday. C&A Marketing, which makes and distributes photographic and electronic equipment, purchased SkyMall at a bankruptcy auction in Phoenix on Wednesday for $1.9 million. C&A also purchased Ritz Camera & Image out of bankruptcy two years ago and purchased the licensing rights for Polaroid still cameras after it came out of bankruptcy in 2008. C&A Executive Vice President Chaim Pikarski said that SkyMall was the victim of advances in technology that allowed airline passengers to shop online, making a catalog that was stuffed in nearly every airline seat back pocket "less relevant and more entertaining." C&A promised to save SkyMall but offered few details.

While RadioShack may be a shadow of its former self, Standard General, whose lender takeover of about 1,700 of RadioShack’s 4,000 stores won court approval last Tuesday, does not see it that way, the New York Times reported today. “We always believed that when you stripped away its relatively heavy cost structure, and some of the legacy ways they did business, there actually was a core here that was worth saving,” said Soohyung Kim of Standard General. Many in the industry are skeptical. “In the consumer’s mind, RadioShack is a name that has come and gone,” said Craig R. Johnson, founder of retail consulting company Customer Growth Partners in New Canaan, Conn. “What’s its reason for being? What consumer problem are they solving?” That is a question that RadioShack, the 94-year-old electronics chain, has tried to answer for years as the digital revolution sapped demand for its staples and its stores tracked a slow decline. In February, it filed for bankruptcy protection, buckling in the face of bigger rivals and online competition. RadioShack’s biggest creditor, Salus Capital Partners, pushed a plan that would probably have liquidated the retailer, prompting a showdown in bankruptcy court. But Standard General’s bid, and its promise to save some 7,500 jobs, prevailed.

A New York hedge fund taking more than 1,700 RadioShack stores out of bankruptcy named former Dell Inc. executive Ron Garriques to oversee the electronics chain’s plan to return to profitability, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Garriques will join the company, being run by Standard General LP, after having worked several years at Dell Inc., where he was in charge of its communications and consumer divisions. He also held posts at Motorola Inc. and Bell Labs. Standard General Managing Partner Soohyung Kim outlined the plan to keep a slimmed-down chain open for business after a bankruptcy court approved its plan to take over the stores. Most locations that survived liquidation will carve out space for Sprint Corp., which has been seeking to grow its retail footprint, to operate its own wireless stores. Other stores will focus on prepaid phones.

Teen clothing retailer Wet Seal Inc. won court approval yesterday to be acquired by an affiliate of Versa Capital Management LLC in a deal that keeps at least 140 stores open, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi signed off on the sale, calling it an “excellent” outcome in a “challenging retailer environment.” Versa outbid B. Riley Financial Inc. for the Wet Seal business and will be paying $7.5 million in cash, holding on to some top managers and keeping many employees on board. The private-equity firm will also be absorbing many of Wet Seal’s liabilities.

A hearing on RadioShack Corp.’s plan to sell about 1,700 stores to its biggest shareholder is set to continue today, with the prospect of thousands of job losses if the deal falls through, Bloomberg News reported today. Standard General LP’s bid to take over the stores and run them in a co-branding arrangement with Sprint Corp. has met opposition from some creditors and been threatened by infighting among lender groups. Standard General said that jobs will be preserved if its plan is approved. Otherwise, the assets will be liquidated and stores closed. “There are over 7,000 jobs and very large business at stake,” Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon said yesterday. A key issue in court is who shall be liable if lower-ranking creditors including Salus Capital Partners LLC successfully sue lenders for pre-bankruptcy actions. The unsecured creditors’ committee is investigating whether some RadioShack lenders could be held responsible for the electronics retailer’s bankruptcy.