It's not over for Toys R Us Yet: other retailers bankrupt? – New shoes

Toys R Us is not dead yet.

The bankrupt retailer, which announced in March that it would close more than 800 stores in the United States, filed a lawsuit with a Virginia bankruptcy court on Monday saying it will cancel the auction of its assets. intellectual property and will continue to operate under the toy. R Us and Babies R Us.

The move does not appear to be motivated by a lack of interest from third parties: the group of lenders that controls the assets said they received qualified offers, but none was "reasonably likely to provide a superior alternative to his own plan. relaunch brands, respect existing license agreements and invest in new retail activities.

The new brand company will be led by the group of private equity funds that financed the bankruptcy and liquidation of Toys R Us, a separate group of private equity firms that bought the toy retailer for $ 6.6 billion. dollars in a debt buyout in 2005. Bankrupt lenders have been criticized for failing to support severance pay for the more than 30,000 Americans who lost their jobs in bankruptcy.

If Toys R Us starts to open new sites (or to return to old ones), it will be one of the most spectacular returns of mass retailers in recent years, although it is far from the only one. Several retailers went bankrupt and remained in business, whether through a restructuring (such as Payless ShoeSource), an additional investment (The Walking Co.) or the sale of their assets to an external party via a sale 363 (Nine West). Even the bankruptcy of Bon-Ton, which announced this spring its intention to close 200 stores, putting 24,000 employees out of work, is reopening some stores, thanks to a new property (although the priority of the company seems to be e-commerce) .

For its part, Toys R Us will probably not return to the vast heritage it once held, but rather the 2018 game manual of concentrating its efforts online and building a sleek portfolio.