OLEAN — A national retailer with several area stores is planning going out of business sales in case further efforts to sell the company fall through.
In a press release issued Thursday, company officials announced that a planned sale to Nexus Capital Management will not be completed and all of the chain’s almost 1,000 locations will see going out of business sales. However, officials said work to sell the entire company is ongoing and they hope to complete a sale by early January to keep the company in operation.
Among the locations affected will be stores in Olean, Yorkshire and Bradford, Pa.
No New York Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications were issued as of Friday afternoon by either the New York State Department of Labor or the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. Job postings remain for area stores on the Big Lots website, but it was unclear if the stores were actually hiring from those postings.
“We all have worked extremely hard and have taken every step to complete a going concern sale,” company CEO Bruce Thorn said in a statement. “While we remain hopeful that we can close an alternative going concern transaction, in order to protect the value of the Big Lots estate, we have made the difficult decision to begin the (going out of business sale) process.”
The company and 18 subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September. The firm had entered into an asset purchase agreement with Nexus Capital Management. The announcement Thursday noted that Big Lots is working toward “an alternative going concern transaction with Nexus or another party.” The company had also secured new financing during reorganization. The company’s bankruptcy website indicates more than 4,000 creditor claims.
“The Company believes that the GOB sales will not preclude it from effectuating a going concern transaction,” officials said in the statement.
The company announced closures of more than 50 stores in 2023. In July, the firm announced its plans to close 35 to 40 stores in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, then revising the number to 315 in an August filing. The company listed 960 locations on its website as of Friday afternoon.
The company’s stock — which traded as high as $70 a share in 2021 — was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in September due to the bankruptcy filing. The current stock value is under eight cents per share.
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