Hey, buddy. Want to rent an abandoned Radio Shack? The quasi-relevant electronics chain received approval from the bankruptcy court today to sell off 1,100 store leases. These stores are open for bidding by anyone interested in taking over the lease––in some locations, Radio Shack has already held store-closing sales and taken off so they won’t have to pay rent in March.
Stores on the closing list in this round are the same 1,100 locations that the company wanted to close a year ago, but didn’t have approval from the lenders that kept the company going before its bankruptcy. While closing stores would keep the company going in the long term, it costs money to close a store, liquidate merchandise, and pay severance to employees.
The stores will now close by the end of February. The bankruptcy judge approved the sale just two hours before bids were due, since the Shack and potential buyers have already been negotiating.
Bidders for the leases could be any retailer interested in a small store space, since Radio Shack has some prime locations and some kind of crappy ones. Amazon was reportedly part of the pre-bankruptcy negotiations, planning to rent some stores to use as pickup and dropoff centers as well as showrooms for its Kindle and Fire product lines.
RadioShack cleared to sell leases to 1,100 abandoned stores [Reuters]
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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