Bed Bath and Beyond has filed for Chapter 11 protection
The Bed Bath & Beyond and Buy Buy Baby Stores Are Going Bankrupt. The Good News comes crashing after Tritton’s Idea
The company, which also owns the BuyBuy Baby chain, has had a hard time regaining itsfinancial footing after a series of attempts that proved to be mistimed or ineffective.
The company has exhausted many last-ditch efforts to shore up finances since first warning of aruptcy in January.
Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy after it was labeled a category killer for its triumph over many competitors. Bed Bath & Beyond and buy buy baby stores will soon be closing. This chain’s survival is in a bad shape.
The new CEO, Mark Tritton, arrived from Target with a big idea that had worked there: Bed Bath & Beyond would replace big-name brands with its own, more profitable private labels. The chain rushed to “declutter” stores and close 200 underperforming ones. Instead of Ralph Lauren towels and Calphalon pans came new store brands like Everhome and Nestwell.
Its shares rose and crashed as a meme stock on the news that activist investor Ryan Cohen invested in the company. His bet paid off with a tidy profit.
In January, the chain defaulted on some of its loans shortly after warning it may go bankrupt. The company requested breaks on rent and announced more store closings. For months, it exhausted numerous financial lifelines from banks and investors. The landlords were supposed to be readying new tenants. Its stock price dropped from $1 to 50 cents.
As a part of the fabric of American shopping, the Big Blue coupon for 20% off became so ubiquitous that mobster Whitey Bulger had one in his kitchen drawer. Broad City had a lot to do with it. (Bed Bath & Beyond will stop accepting coupons on April 26.)
When Bed Bath & Beyond Became a Treasure Hunt: The Sustained Purchase-Back-To-Home Transactions of a Large-Scale Retail Chain
“Is it me or is it particularly cold in here?” one shopper asked another, pushing an empty cart past a wall of identical comforters. The home had a few mirrors and a wall shelf but not much else. A light buzzed overhead.
The chain also had perfected a secret power play: Unlike most retailers, Bed Bath let local managers choose what to sell in their stores, catering to the particular tastes of shoppers in their area.
“Floor to ceiling, stack ’em high and watch ’em fly — that was kind of our motto,” said Beth Grossfeld, who spent 13 years in the marketing division of Bed Bath & Beyond. The customers liked it. It was like a treasure hunt. You got what you wanted and 10 other things.”
“I would go into one meeting and it would be ‘we need to be … the destination for home, more upscale, home decor, more furniture,’ ” Amy Laskin, a former Bed Bath & Beyond content marketing executive, told NPR.
The next thing would be, we need to be more competitive with Amazon. She said that they needed to be the destination with everything. “The next thing you know, we were carrying diamond jewelry like Costco does.”
One of its founders admitted to The Wall Street Journal that the chain missed the boat on the internet. It was busy whipping up a website but it still had ads that encouraged people to go to stores and look at stuff that wasn’t on the website.
Bed Bath & Beyond strained to turn around the failed turnaround. Executive Sue Gove took the helm with a “back-to-basics” plan to replenish the big-name brands, but the brand suppliers were now anxious about ever getting paid. So were Bed Bath’s lenders.
The timing proved disastrous, coinciding with the pandemic supply-chain scramble. After Bed Bath & Beyond’s stuck-at- home shoppers demanded all of what the store sells, many of its top items vanished from its shelves.
Bed Bath & Beyond spent $1 billion to buy back its own stock, soon after Tritton and other leaders were out. The move benefits shareholders, and companies sometimes do it when they believe their shares are undervalued.
This conviction was also shared by followers of activist investor Ryan Cohen of Chewy and GameStop fame. Cohen last year bought a stake in the company, advocating the sale of BuyBuy Baby. His fans on Reddit and YouTube pumped up the stock. Just as suddenly, Cohen sold his entire stake.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/24/1152070914/bed-bath-the-great-beyond-how-the-home-goods-giant-went-bankrupt
A lonely day spent in the dust: a regretful day at bed bath & beyond, when BDB is selling its business in bankruptcy
I couldn’t find anything for the photo shoot that I needed in one bedroom, so I went to the back of my hand. It was a sad day.
He pondered if Bed Bath & Beyond could sell itself in bankruptcy. He then asked what the business is worth, given it’s many relapses.
