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Dallas, TX-based Neiman Marcus Group is “preparing” to file bankruptcy and could so so as early as this week, sources close to the matter exclusively shared with Reuters Sunday.
Like other “non-essential” businesses, Neiman Marcus earlier this year had to temporarily shutter all 43 of its storefronts including in Buckhead’s Lenox Square and would be the “first major U.S. department store operator to succumb to the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak,” according to the report.
Sister retailers Last Call and Bergdorf Goodman would be included in the bankruptcy.
It’s unclear what would happen to the retail stores after Neiman Marcus Group finalizes the bankruptcy, but it will likely result in a reorganization of debts and not a liquidation.
According to Reuters’ sources the company “could attract interest from potential suitors seeking to pick up the company or some of its assets on the cheap.”
Neiman Marcus has been in business for more than a century with its first store debuting in Dallas in 1907 under the Marcus and Neiman families, according to the retailer’s website.
Click here to read Reuters’ thoughtful report in its entirety.
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A friend of mine works for a last call store and told me all about this going down at Christmas time… I don’t feel this has anything to do with the coronavirus!! Where is your factual proof??
NM and subsidiaries have been flirting with bankruptcy since last year and has been public knowledge. With such a catastrophic event like coronavirus resulting in the closure of stores across the country and reliance on online shopping, the retailer has been pushed over the edge of no longe supporting their balance sheets. The pandemic has proven to be the final straw for the organization.
The NM store at Lenox is the second-highest volume store in the chain, behind only the original unit in Dallas. NM was purchased by a private equity company a few years back, which saddled it with a crazy amount of debt. That is what is choking the company’s performance, but this current crisis did not help. The Lenox unit will be fine post-BK.