Basically, the company had to pay for its own buyout when private equity firms KKL, Vornado, and Bain bought the company for $6.6 billion, mostly with loans.
Because the company then had to pay off those extreme loans, they were forced to sell off their assets and property, which they leased back from the very private equity firms that now owned them.
The same thing happened more recently with Red Lobster and JoAnn Fabrics.
I think the real reason they died is because they had high markups and hence, nobody could afford to shop there. The one we had in our next town over was very expensive and even though it was cool, we could never go there because it was expensive. With the high markup comes the low volume, and hence debt. The high markup only works with the most popular of a category, but it still kills your brand if it’s anything more than premium price for premium products. Wallmart and other box stores, and eventually amazon also killed it because it’s a crowded market. Cool concept for a store though. Reminds me of the time before national and international corporatism when you could have little mom and pop stores like that, with hand picked toys that were really cool.
This is a well studied case. It was private equity that killed them.
I don’t know anything about them tbh.
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Just basing it on my own experience. I already knew they were going to go out of business even as a kid because they were the most expensive option in the market and the parking lots were always empty. This is when I was a kid though, like 20+ years ago.
This logic in infuriating. You had sourced reasons, and ongoing discussion, but you decided to put forth a baseless theory that attempts to disprove the discussion and studied facts based on your feelings as a child 20+ years ago?
Jesus fuck… Why?
You do realize both can be true? One doesn’t proclude the other.
Then you may want to rewrite this part. Because what I understood was essentially the same as:
Coroner: Gunshot wound in the back of the head. Here is the blood, there is the exit wound. and this is a bullet fragment.
Ari: I think the real reason they died is how they were pricing their labour
Bota: Are you for fuckin’ real right now?
You are arguing with a straw man because now you are just making up stuff to get mad at and argue about. Those are your words not mine.