https://www.msn.com/en-us/mone
Specifically, Toys "R" Us appears to be returning suddenly, just a few months after shutting down all of its locations in the U.S. after 70 years; the initial plan appears to be launching a supplier of toys to retailers such as Kohl's/Target/Walmart/etc. under the name "Geoffrey's Toy Box" in time for this year's "holiday season", before slowly bringing back the Babies "R" Us and Toys "R" Us names in the foreseeable future - incidentally, a few employees/executives seemed to have still reported to the company's final HQ in Wayne, N.J. these past few months, giving the appearance of "continuity" there the whole t
Sears Holdings, Incorporated (SHLD) recently dropped below $1 for the first time ever in the retail company's storied history (officially since 2005, when Kmart and Sears merged but unofficially since 1906, when the original 1886 company was publicly listed for stock trading); the news following headlines revealing CEO Eddie Lampert's declarations that (A) he was willing to "buy back" the Kenmore appliance line, reportedly valued, by itself, at $400M+, while the entire company has reportedly dropped to only about $100M, and (B) the company just missed one debt deadline, and faces another debt deadlines very soon, one of which requires the company's "reserves" to be above a certain amount, and another demonstrating that it would have been able to pay $134M in debt by mid-October, neither of which seems to portray the company as one capable of surviving beyond, say, sometime next year, and has certainly accelerated the company's continued decline from about 3,500+ locations at the time of the 2005 merger between Kmart and Sears to only about 800 now (a decline of 77+%) - surely, one would think that a pair of retailers that have been in and out of bankruptcy/rumors thereof ever since the end of Bradlees/Caldor/Jamesway/
Also, in a follow-up to that news from a few days ago, it looks like even more locations will get closed very soon, and some articles of clothing sold there caught fire:
Unfortunately, the CEO of MGA Entertainment, Isaac Larian, who tried to buy the (original) company out of its liquidation process back in the spring, says this revival effort is "dead to (him)"; therefore, he appears to be planning on basically "boycotting" supplying his company's products to the revived chain, regardless of how the asset management firms currently running (the remnants of) the chain, Angelo Gordon & Co., along with Solus Asset Capital Management, come to him with offers - cash; credit; etc.; it apparently no longer matters to Larian how, or even whether, they approach his company, but I think the rest of us reserve the right to call him a "party pooper" for reacting to the news so harshly, especially since I'm sure his company will still end up supplying the new FAO Schwarz location in Manhattan that is scheduled to re-open soon:
(in other news, even in Hong Kong, the N.Y.C. subways can't remain open!)
As of this week, chapter 11 bankruptcy/restructuring, and possible chapter 7 liquidation/complete shutdown happened for Sears Holdings, the parent company of the Kmart (discount) and Sears department store chains - specifically, as early as this past Monday, when the company most likely missed a scheduled $134 million debt payment, and possibly also start shutting down 150+ more locations; unfortunately, the company no longer seems able to shift enough assets/cash between CEO Eddie Lampert's personal investment firm and its corporate structure, allowing Kmart and Sears to obtain slightly higher amounts of cash, as both the company and Lampert's firm seemed capable of doing in the past... I feel it should be remembered, though, that Kmart alone went through restructuring twice even befor
As of this week, chapter 11 bankruptcy/restructuring, and possible chapter 7 liquidation/complete shutdown happened for Sears Holdings, the parent company of the Kmart (discount) and Sears department store chains - specifically, as early as this past Monday, when the company most likely missed a scheduled $134 million debt payment, and possibly also start shutting down 150+ more locations; unfortunately, the company no longer seems able to shift enough assets/cash between CEO Eddie Lampert's personal investment firm and its corporate structure, allowing Kmart and Sears to obtain slightly higher amounts of cash, as both the company and Lampert's firm seemed capable of doing in the past... I feel it should be remembered, though, that Kmart alone went through restructuring twice even befor
Now, if you'll allow me to "reminisce" again, as I did with Toys "R" Us earlier this year, I've visited pretty much all of the Sears locations around here in my life so far, along with a few in other states, as well as some of the now-shuttered Canadian locations (especially the one along the back end of Toronto Eaton Centre mall); that being said, even when I was barely starting my K-12 years, nobody I ever headed to any Sears locations with seemed to use them as much more than "pass-through" places to get to malls such as Rockaway and Willowbrook (northern N.J.), although my father, being a mechanic/trucker practically his entire (working) life, always trusted Craftsman tools, but, aside from the occasional Levi's purchase there, again, we mostly just "passed through" those buildings to get into one local mall or another in order to be able to be "mall rats" elsewhere nearby!
Anyway, in other retail news these past few days:
Now, normally, in the past, I'd just up and head over there, but, with NJT completely ******** the bed these past few weeks in order to catch up on very overdue maintenance work, I'm debating whether or not to even bother with that whole "grand re-opening" (Fri. 11/16), since the risk of getting stuck aboard a disabled train seems infinitely higher right now; unfortunately, I won't have as much of a choice in the matter come the following weekend, though (Sat. 11/24), since I'll be headed off to MSG once again that night for Cornell v. Harvard, although, perhaps, I could fit both of those "return trips" in one right after the other - visiting the new FAO in the afternoon, followed by heading down from there (30 Rock, in the former "NBC Experience" location) to MSG that evening after checking that place out, although that day would no longer be the "grand re-opening" day/weekend for FAO!
Speaking of sports, I'm still debating which Maine @ UConn game I'll most likely be checking out in a couple of weekends' time; the problem with attending the Friday night game (7 P.M. 10/26), or any night games in Hartford, for that matter, will be me not returning home until at least 3 A.M., and, having already done so after the BU @ Northeastern game I attended back in November 2016, I do not want to have to randomly wander around the streets of Manhattan again, waiting for the trains to restart, so I'm still leaning toward that Saturday afternoon game (3 P.M. 10/27)!
On a more personal note, though, I was just barely able to even make this post, since we had just been without any Optimum cable/Internet/phone services for the past five days now, as of today (Tuesday), but, thankfully, Verizon FiOS services our area, so, if events similar to this outage episode keep happening, we might end up on the phone twice in the foreseeable future, once to leave Optimum after, personally, my entire life so far, and then again later in order to join Verizon FiOS!
To fill you in now on Cornell-Harvard @ MSG in late November, specifically the weekend after Thanksgiving, I'll be sitting in section 211 - don't know exactly where just yet, but at least I'll definitely be in a "center-ice" section for that game!
...also, it looks like the Colgate v. Quinnipiac game out on Long Island 12/29 will start at a bit earlier time than most other "neutral-site" college hockey games tend to start:
...even so, I might still end up there to close out this (calendar) year!
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