Eddie Bauer‘s Bay Area stores, along with the rest of its North American retail fleet, are on track to close after the company’s store operator failed to find a buyer in bankruptcy court.
Eddie Bauer LLC, which operates the brand’s U.S. and Canadian stores, said it received no qualified bids for its assets by a March 3 deadline, according to court filings. That forced the cancellation of a planned March 6 auction in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey and left the company moving ahead with store-closing sales.
For shoppers in California and across the country, the clock is ticking.
Eddie Bauer said gift cards and loyalty credits will no longer be accepted after Thursday, and all sales are final, with no returns or exchanges.
The shutdown would affect about 150 stores in 40 U.S. states and 24 stores in six Canadian provinces, according to RCS Real Estate Advisors, the brokerage hired to market roughly 174 store leases.
The collapse of the sale process is the clearest sign yet that Eddie Bauer’s brick-and-mortar business may be at the end of the trail.
The Seattle-founded retailer’s store operator filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Feb. 9, citing declining sales, supply chain problems and rising operating costs. It was the third bankruptcy filing tied to Eddie Bauer’s retail operations since 2003.
“This is not an easy decision,” Marc Rosen, chief executive of Catalyst Brands – the company that holds the license to operate Eddie Bauer stores in the United States and Canada – said in a statement. “However, this restructuring is the best way to optimize value for the retail company’s stakeholders and also ensure Catalyst Brands remains profitable and with strong liquidity and cash flow.”
The bankruptcy does not mean the Eddie Bauer brand itself is disappearing. Authentic Brands Group owns the company’s intellectual property, and e-commerce and wholesale operations have already been transferred to Outdoor 5 LLC, which will continue to run those businesses.
Founded in Seattle in 1920 as Bauer’s Sports Shop, Eddie Bauer became a fixture in American outdoor apparel. The company helped popularize quilted down jackets and outfitted climber James W. Whittaker for his 1963 Mount Everest ascent.
At its peak in 2001, Eddie Bauer operated nearly 600 stores, according to real estate data firm CoStar Group. Now, like many legacy apparel chains, it is struggling to keep pace with shifting consumer tastes and sharper competition from newer outdoor brands and direct-to-consumer rivals.
