spiderbob007 wrote:Every company that Bain Capital touches seems to go bankrupt.
Yup, Clearchannel and I heart radio both bent belly up after they bough them. They have the death touch.
spiderbob007 wrote:Every company that Bain Capital touches seems to go bankrupt.
Cyber Bishop wrote:spiderbob007 wrote:Every company that Bain Capital touches seems to go bankrupt.
Yup, Clearchannel and I heart radio both bent belly up after they bough them. They have the death touch.
SW's SilverHammer wrote:Cyber Bishop wrote:spiderbob007 wrote:Every company that Bain Capital touches seems to go bankrupt.
Yup, Clearchannel and I heart radio both bent belly up after they bough them. They have the death touch.
Not to get to technical, but Bain capitol isn't a management firm. It's private equities. What they do is take out massive loans, buy companies then slash payroll and cut costs. It makes the business look profitable in the short term so they can take out more loans in the businesses name, pay off their original debts, then sell the company for a greater profit. It's not structural management, its money management.
Va'al wrote:With the stories about Toys R Us dominating the news cycle for toy collectors and fans, something else seems to have made its appearance, sped up by the closure of the giraffe-shaped retail chain, and a name that North American Transformers fans might recognise: KB Toys.
Fellow Seibertronian Sabrblade pointed us towards an article on The Rock Father detailing the entire deal, but it all starts with Ellia Kassoff of Strategic Brands, LLC, posting on LinkedIn about their plans to resurrect KB Toys, and how the TRU closure has affected all this.we have now accelerated our business plan and hope to have our stores up and running before Christmas. We're in discussions with many of the toy manufactures, as we try to find out the best way to support them and the 20% loss of the US toy market due to the Toys R Us liquidation.
Additionally, Kassoff later posted another message, highlighting their current priorities in terms of the over 30000 people who are losing their current jobs at Toys R Us, along with any other specialist in the toy industry (manufacturer, distributor, retailer, etc) who may be interested in joining the initiative to, as they put it, 'save the toy industry'.
The action is bold, and as Zahn points out in the article on The Rock Father, there are both good pointers and potential hurdles in the whole deal, including the cause of KB's downfall in the first place being the same as TRU's this time round:Strategic Marks did indeed file for a trademark on the name "KB Toys" back in 2016. What's interesting here is that the original KB Toys fell victim to the same vultures at Bain Capital, who loaded that company with debt and killed it in the same way that they've destroyed Toys "R" Us. Then, in 2009, Toys "R" Us acquired the KB portfolio of trademarks from Streambank, LLC for just over $2M, taking over the domain names and later using the KB Toys name on a series of budget-priced, house-branded toys and games (they were crap) labeled as K•B Classics. Along the way, KB had many variations of their name, including K•B Toys, K•B Toys Outlet, K•B Toy Works and Kay-Bee Toys. It will be interesting to see if Toys "R" Us still considers any of those to be assets in their liquidation, as I was able to find that KBToys.com, KBToyWorks.com and KBKids.com (which once had a $43M push behind it) are all still owned by Toys "R" Us and pointed to the TRU.com server (although unresponsive)
That said, what do you make of this? Is it a positive update in the Toys r Us debacle? Is it something that might interest you to follow through? Join the conversation in the Energon Pub, and share your thoughts!
EunuchRon wrote:"One shall stand, one shall fall".
KB stands when TRU falls? If that happens, just weird, man. Weird.
tmthor wrote:Not to bust everyone's bubble but all of you that did not shop at Tru are not going to shop at the new KB why do you ask?.....because Walmart Target and Amazon will still be cheaper. They are not going to be able to compete right of the bat. The problem is Walmart and Target and Amazon are too big...the stiffle competition and yes their buying power is far beyond that of any smaller retailers. Not saying if done right the new KB will fail..just saying that at least in the beginning they will have the same prices if not higher than Tru had. Also on the radio (I have not looked up anything to check the validity of the story) but on the radio they said there Amazon is looking into buying a bunch of the Tru inventory and possibly some of the stores (the ones that are owned by Tru not leased that might be distribution warehouses idk) but the guy reported that might disrupt the Canadian stores deal. He also reported that many parties are interested in the name trademark and the online site. So this might become a big mess as far as the Canadian stores sales go...the might have to change the name if another party buys the name "toys r us"
Another thing that was discussed was that we are seeing the end of the specialty stores (big chain stores not mom and pop ones) they listed many stores that sales figures have forecasted will have troubles they named the following Best Buy, GameStop, Claire's, Barnes & nobel & FYE. They gave a multitude of reasons but the biggest one is....you can one stop shop at Walmart and Target...and get the best price in many cases...and that's what people are doing if not there Amazon...they one reporter laughed and said most likely Walmart will fear Amazon some day the way other retailers fear Walmart now.
Edit
Found the Amazon story they might be referencing look up bloomberg.com
WreckerJack wrote:I won't be having any kids. My toys are for ME!
WreckerJack wrote:Also heard from another person that grocery stores are cutting up TRU giftcards as they are being recalled. If you have any TRU giftcards or credit, use them up ASAP. Claim what is rightfully yours before it's too late.
Ig89ninja wrote:I just went to my TRU and on the doors there was a sign that said "liquidation sale postponed",
I'm not sure what this means (besides no toy sales for now) but i figured I'd post it here
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