Announced today. This is a big deal.

[llmart]

https://www.freep.com/story/money/business/2020/03/05/art-van-furniture-bankruptcy-liquidation/4951107002/

[muntrv]

1. Lots of competition. Near my home in Ann Arbor,

Gardner White just opened. Plus there are dozens of mattress stores.

[llmart]

2. That's not my experience in Macomb County or even Oakland.

We have a couple Gardner Whites but I am never impressed when I go in there. When Art Van is gone, there is no reasonably priced furniture stores in our area. Art Van is so much more than mattresses. It's the place most middle class people go to buy their furniture.

[3catwoman3]

3. Wow! I just purchased several items from...

...there to furnish my mom’s new little apartment in a senior living community. The store is less than a mile from me. Very nice young salesman, who has 2 daughters and a baby boy due in April.

[llmart]

4. 3100 employees facing losing their jobs...

right on the heels of our election on Tuesday. That's a lot of people to lose their jobs.

I'm a senior who downsized from a large house to a smaller condo and I bought all new furniture at Art Van.

[magicarpet]

5. Vulture Capitalism,..... hit,... rape $$$,... dump,... run.

Employees and the community take a major financial hit and are left with little more than a flaming bag of shit after corporate bankruptcy.

Greed and gluttony at its very bestest.

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Ah, yes, a private equity firm bought a chain that had been profitable for

years, and then it's suddenly bankrupt.

[llmart]

7. +1

That sums it up nicely.

[llmart]

8. Seen on Local 7 news tonight - Notice the last sentence.

So how did the company that has been selling furniture for 60 years get to this point? The Dean of the School of Business at Oakland University Michael Mazzeo says the way Thomas H Lee Partners bought it in 2017 weakened the company.

“Private equity firms always borrow to make the purchase. They also engaged in what is called a sale lease back. Which means the company sold their stores and leased it back so they never lose the use of the store,” said Mazzeo.

The company then opened new stores while weighed down with debt and rental bills. When sales declined due to on-line competition, the company quickly got in trouble.

The straw that broke the camels back may have come from overseas.


“What is happening with the China embargo and also the Coronavirus might have been the end of it,” said Mazzeo.