The home goods retailer chain Bed Bath & Beyond is set to close its Bloomington store, which was among 149 stores on its most recent list of stores that will close.
This news comes less than a month after the company announced it shut 87 stores around the country due to strained inventory. Downsizing appears to be a last effort to stabilize financial struggles the company faces.
According to its web site, by completing a complex stock offering to avoid Chapter 11, the company was able to get an injection of $225 million and a pledge for $800 million in the future to pay down the company’s debt.
The model of companies raising money when they are distressed is challenging, noted Sridhar Arcot, a clinical associate professor of finance at the Kelley School of Business.
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“This is extremely risky,” Arcot said. “[The company] should have done it earlier is my view of it.”
The retail company has shut down about 400 locations over the past several months, reducing the number of its stores across the country from 760 to 360. The brand peaked at over 1,500 stores in 2017.
“The key thing for me is that it's the investors, the current stockholders, [that will be] paying for this which, in the long run, is not so good,” Arcot said. “It shouldn't be them paying for it.”
Bloomington used to have two Bed Bath & Beyond stores. The other store, on the west side of the city, closed in 2020.
There are four other Indiana locations are on the latest list of store closures: Fort Wayne, Noblesville, Lafayette and Valparaiso.
Bloomington’s Bed Bath & Beyond said no comment will be made “at the store level.”
