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Bed Bath & Beyond files for bankruptcy

Could kind of see this one coming because of the previous store closures: https://cnn.com/2023/04/23/business/bed-bath-beyond-bankruptcy/index.html

Comments

  • edited April 2023
    Didn’t fully sink in until Bloomberg aired some images of BBBs with “Going out of Business SALE” signs across the front. Sad. A bit reminiscent of K-Mart. Retail’s a tough row to hoe, Price competition intense. Margins must be slim. You can be on top the world one minute then slapped down by a new development in retail, a new competitor, a new technological development or just a fickle consumer. Weather patterns, natural disasters, plague can up-end the best laid plans. Add to that increasing retail theft and road closures due to ongoing construction. Good grief! I’d be loath to invest in any.
  • Sad to see them go. Really don’t like to shop at Amazon for everything.
  • hank said:

    Didn’t fully sink in until Bloomberg aired some images of BBBs with “Going out of Business SALE” signs across the front. Sad. A bit reminiscent of K-Mart. Retail’s a tough row to hoe, Price competition intense. Margins must be slim. You can be on top the world one minute then slapped down by a new development in retail, a new competitor, a new technological development or just a fickle consumer. Weather patterns, natural disasters, plague can up-end the best laid plans. Add to that increasing retail theft and road closures due to ongoing construction. Good grief! I’d be loath to invest in any.

    Unfortunately, the original owners were admittedly slow to get on the e-commerce train and then subsequent management just keep digging the hole deeper with ever shifting strategies. (And those coupons ended up being a giant albatross around their necks.)
  • edited April 2023
    Target's former chief merchandising officer, Mark Tritton, became Bed Bath & Beyond CEO in late 2019.
    He attempted to turn around operations, in part, by emphasizing private label goods.
    Many consumers abandoned Bed Bath & Beyond and went elsewhere to purchase
    the brand-name products they used to buy from the store.
  • They were flying high in the '90s. I remember Lou Dobbs had that end-of-day money show.
  • The brilliant Matt Levine

    Outrageous, like the inverse of naked shorting

    And voluntary

    https://news.bloomberglaw.com/mergers-and-acquisitions/matt-levines-money-stuff-bed-bath-moves-into-the-beyond
  • Was BB &B carrying a large debt load? Oftentimes these bankruptcies happen after some financial engineering in which money is taken out of the company and it's saddled with too much debt for its business to sustain.
  • dstone42 said:

    Was BB &B carrying a large debt load? Oftentimes these bankruptcies happen after some financial engineering in which money is taken out of the company and it's saddled with too much debt for its business to sustain.

    Yep. Like $4B, which was like 500m more than their company value, if I recall the story from over the weekend.
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