Bon-Ton Caches, a bankrupt department store chain, will begin a going-out-of-business exchange at its 200 U.S. locations in the coming days after two liquidators won an auction for the assembly, two sources close to the situation told Reuters on Tuesday.
Bon-Ton, which detects its roots to 1854, had hoped in recent days that a pair of freeholders and a private equity firm would actively bid at the auction and try to save the firm.
However, sources told Reuters on Monday that the auction started without the publican group.
Great American Group and Tiger Capital Group, which specialize in braggadocio down retail chains, won the auction with a bid estimated to be worth $775.5 million, be consistent to the sources. The pair bid against other liquidators.
The money raised from the auction see fit be used by Bon-Ton to repay its creditors.
A portion of the winning bid came in the attitude of a credit bid, or when a creditor uses some of what they are owed a substitute alternatively of cash, sources told Reuters. Bondholders’ credit bid contributed at least $100 million to the value of the pleasing bid, according to the sources.
The failure of the company, with headquarters in York, Pennsylvania and Milwaukee, get weeks after Toys ‘R’ Us began a piecemeal liquidation of its namesake cumulates and Babies ‘R’ Us, the latest sign of upheaval in the retail industry.
A U.S. Bankruptcy Court understanding will be held in Wilmington, Delaware on Wednesday to approve of the winning bid, put the way for the liquidators to begin selling store inventory, leases and fixtures.
It is accomplishable some of the stores will be acquired by another retail operator that could reopen the funds under one of the Bon-Ton names.
The company’s stores include Carson’s, Younkers, Elder-Beerman, Bergner’s, Boston Set aside, and Herberger’s, as well as Bon-Ton.