Gordmans department store bankruptcy comes to an end
The bankruptcy filing for Gordmans department store has finally come to an end. The store is based in Omaha and it had a liquidation plan approved by a bankruptcy court. The approval for liquidation occurred just less than one year since the company entered into the process. The company had to enter bankruptcy because of high dividend payments to shareholders and beyond lackluster sales.
Creditors of Gordmans, which held unsecured debt, received pennies on the dollar from the company in the liquidation plan. The investors of the company, which held stock, received nothing in liquidation. Once this was approved, the company ceased to exist, but its store in Council Bluffs remained open because it is under new ownership.
The company used to run 100 stores across 22 states. There were warehouses located in Omaha and Indiana. The company filed for bankruptcy back in March of this year. The company had been struggling with declining sales since 2012. The company saw a 6 percent drop in sales for the nine months in fiscal 2016, dropping by a total of $12.5 million.
Earlier in 2017, Gordmans sold half of its stores to a Texas-based company called Stage Stores. The company from Texas also purchased the warehouse in Omaha. The sale of the warehouse helped to save 150 jobs. The stores purchased by the Texas-based company have remained open and are being operated as discount stores.
The company was founded by the Gordman family more than 100 years ago with a single store in Omaha.
Filing for bankruptcy in New York should only be done with the assistance of a bankruptcy law attorney.
Source: The Daily Nonpareil, “Gordmans bankruptcy is over; unsecured creditors get 5 to 11 cents on the dollar,” Nov. 07, 2017