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No!!!!!!!!!!
Where will I get my pants?
Where will I get my pants?
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never heard of him, but why would you take pants from him? -
Chapter 11 (reorg) or Chapter 7 (liquidation)?
Btw, you will get your pants in your drawer.I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891Comment
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Chapter 11... they are selling themselves.
LINKEddie Bauer, the outdoor-clothing chain that sold goose-down coats to Mount Everest mountaineers and college students alike, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday afternoon, and said it planned to sell itself for $202 million to CCMP Capital, a private equity firm.
The company filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware, and court filings show that Bank of America, General Electric and the CIT Group have agreed to provide up to $100 million in financing during the bankruptcy case.
Eddie Bauer is pursuing a sale to CCMP through what is known as a 363 sale process in bankruptcy court. A judge would need to approve the sale, and other potential bidders could emerge. CCMP, as a so-called stalking horse bidder, is entitled to a $5 million breakup fee if it loses during the court-supervised auction process.
The company, which had some 371 stores in North America, was struggling to repay its debt after the sudden shutdown in consumer spending torpedoed its sales. The falloff in sales came as the chain was trying to pull off a multi-year turnaround that included cost cuts, as well as changes to its management team and its merchandise.
“Eddie Bauer is a good company with a great brand and a bad balance sheet,” Neil Fiske, Eddie Bauer’s chief executive, said in a statement. “This process will allow the business to emerge with far less debt, positioned for growth as the economy recovers and as our new products gain traction. We expect this process to be completed very quickly, protecting our employees and critical vendor partners every step of the way.”
Shares of Eddie Bauer Holdings had been trading for about 25 cents since last week.
For the three months ended April 4, Eddie Bauer’s loss increased by $25.2 million, to $44.5 million or $1.44 a share. Sales at full-price and outlet stores open at least a year declined 13.7 percent, in contrast to a 0.5 percent increase a year ago. (Sales were hurt in part by Canadian exchange rates.) On top of the sales declines, the company had $427 million in debt and was struggling in the tight credit market.
In a court filing, the company blamed much of its debt load to loans it took on when its onetime parent company, Spiegel, filed for bankruptcy in 2003. Eddie Bauer took on $300 million in debt, as well as Spiegel’s benefits and pension plans. The retailer said that about 50 percent of its earnings now go toward paying down that debt.
“The high leverage that Eddie Bauer assumed as a result of the Spiegel bankruptcy became a greater debt than Eddie Bauer could carry in the current depressed economic and retail market environment,” Marvin Toland, the company’s chief financial officer, wrote in the filing.
Apparel chains have been hit hard by the recession. The likes of Mervyn’s, Steve & Barry’s, Goody’s and Gottschalk’s have filed for bankruptcy protection in recent months.
Even after cutting costs as part of its turnaround, Eddie Bauer made additional reductions. In January, it announced that it would cut 193 jobs at its corporate headquarters in Seattle, an information technology center in Chicago, a distribution center in Columbus and a call center in Canada. The job cuts represented about 15 percent of the non-retail staff. Eddie Bauer said it would also freeze salaries, limit its capital spending to about $15 million, rethink some benefits programs, reduce the size of its board of directors and the board’s compensation and lower Mr. Fiske’s salary by 10 percent for the rest of the year.
The proposed buyer, CCMP, is a middle-market private equity firm that once served as a buyout arm of JPMorgan Chase. The firm aims at deals up to $3 billion, and it boasts of its operational expertise in turning around companies. Last year, it hired Greg Brenneman, who helped fix Burger King and Continental Airlines, as its chairman.
Founded by Eddie Bauer in Seattle in 1920, the retailer said its stores, catalog business and Web sites would continue operating, and that it intended to honor customer gift cards, returns and loyalty program points.
Before filing for bankruptcy protection, Eddie Bauer was in the process of strengthening its men’s business and introducing new merchandise that harkened back to its roots as a leader in outdoor adventure clothing. (After nearly freezing to death during a hunting trip in the 1930s, the founder, Eddie Bauer, designed and eventually patented a quilted goose-down jacket.)
In April, the chain introduced First Ascent, a line of “expedition-grade” mountaineering wear and gear. Last month, Eddie Bauer celebrated the line by outfitting two mountaineers as they took on Mount Everest: Ed Viesturs (who has made a habit of climbing 8,000-meter peaks without bottled oxygen) and Peter Whittaker, the nephew of Jim Whittaker, who was also wearing Eddie Bauer when he became the first American to successfully reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1963.
“This is a milestone for us,” Mr. Fiske said in a statement last month. “It puts us literally back on top of the world.”Comment
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