Bed Bath & Beyond, a Big-Bang Home-Gas, Inc., Shuts Down, and Refinance Pushes Back
The company has already closed more than 300 stores over the course of the last year, according to a regulatory filing late Monday.
Most notably, Bed Bath & Beyond missed out on the shopping boom that the pandemic brought to many home-goods sellers, as the company was in the middle of an overhaul that involved replacing big name brands with more private brands. The new-brands strategy caused a supply chain crisis which left top products like KitchenAid mixers missing from Bed Bath’s shelves. Its website wasn’t as up to date as its peers.
Bed Bath said it expected sales to go down by about a third because of lower customer traffic and less availability of inventory. The forecast suggested losses would increase by almost 40% to $385.8 million.
The stock of Bed Bath and Beyond went up 400% last year when Ryan Cohen took a stake and sought to change things at the company.
Late summer, the company had secured financing that propelled it through the holiday shopping season. Now the retailer is trying to refinance its debts, facing waning enthusiasm from creditors.
Last week it was announced that it was closing the remaining 49 Harmon Face Value stores, and 5 buy buy Baby locations. The new store closings weren’t immediately available.
A turnaround doesn’t look imminent: The embattled home goods chain forecasts first quarter sales to be down by 30% to 40% with “sequential, quarterly sales improvement thereafter” the filing said.
Bed Bath and Beyond, a Big Billion Dollar Company, Will Close a Thousand Stores Through an Offering of Preference Stock and Warrants
The company said Tuesday it raised some $1 billion through an offering of preferred stock and warrants in a last-ditch effort to stave off bankruptcy. On Monday, the company said it appointed Holly Etlin, a bankruptcy expert, as interim chief financial officer.
Bed Bath and Beyond said it will have hundreds of stores and many buy buy Baby stores. The company will have decided to close almost 500 of the stores it had just a year ago, and the new company will be half the size of the old one.
The company was unable to compete with large chains like Walmart and Target, due to their transition to online shopping. The novelty of Bed Bath & Beyonds coupons faded as many shoppers switched to those competitors.