After failing to find a buyer, Loehmann's Holdings Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with plans to shut down its 39 U.S. stores.
The filing marked the 92-year-old off-price chain’s third bankruptcy over the last three decades. It also filed in 2010 and 1999.
Court papers in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan listed assets of between $50 million and $100 million and liabilities over $100 million.
Three liquidation firms – SB Capital Group LLC, Tiger Capital Group LLC and A&G Realty Partners LLC reached an agreement to conduct going-out-of-business sales at Loehmann's stores starting in early January. The three offered $19 million in cash and a percentage of the proceeds from the store-closing sales. Their offer will be put to a test at auction proposed for later this month.
According to court papers, three “strategic financial buyers” also remain involved in the process, leaving open the possibility that a going-concern buyer could still step in and keep some or all of the stores open.
In Monday's bankruptcy filing, Chief Operating Officer William Thayer said that Loemann’s was “late in introducing the e-commerce channel relative to its peers in the 'off-price' retail sector,” launching its website in late 2011 after less than six months of development.
Also, he said, “the decline in economic conditions” in Loehmann’s markets such as California, New York, Florida and the Midwest have had “an adverse effect.”
In recent years, store productivity has suffered and inventory turnover has lagged, Thayer said. He also blamed “increased competition in the off-price retail channel, limited access to capital
