Eddie Bauer’s Bay Area stores and the rest of its North American retail stores are closing as the company’s store operators fail to find a buyer in bankruptcy court.
Eddie Bauer LLC, which operates the brand’s U.S. and Canadian stores, said it had not received qualified bids for its assets as of the March 3 deadline, according to court documents. That forced the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey to cancel an auction scheduled for March 6 and let the company proceed with closing sales.
For shoppers in California and across the country, the clock is ticking.
Eddie Bauer said gift cards and loyalty points will no longer be accepted after Thursday, and all sales are final and there will be no returns or exchanges.
The closures will 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 about 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 its rope.
The Seattle-based retailer’s store operators filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Feb. 9, citing declining sales, supply chain issues and rising operating costs. This is the third bankruptcy filing since 2003 related to Eddie Bauer’s retail operations.
“This was not an easy decision,” Marc Rosen, chief executive of Catalyst Brands, which holds a 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 the retail company’s stakeholder value while also ensuring that Catalyst Brands remains profitable and has strong liquidity and cash flow.”
Bankruptcy doesn’t mean the Eddie Bauer brand itself is disappearing. Authentic Brands Group owns the company’s intellectual property, and the e-commerce and wholesale operations have been transferred to Outdoor 5 LLC, which will continue to operate those operations.
Eddie Bauer was founded in Seattle in 1920 as Bauer’s Sports Shop and later became a fixture in the American outdoor apparel industry. The company helped popularize quilted down jackets and gear for climber James W. Whittaker, who climbed Mount Everest in 1963.
At its peak in 2001, Eddie Bauer operated nearly 600 stores, according to real estate data firm CoStar Group. Now, like many traditional apparel chains, it is struggling to keep up with changing consumer tastes and greater competition from emerging outdoor brands and direct-to-consumer rivals.
