Lord & Taylor’s time as a retailer is coming to an end as the company is closing all of its stores.
The closures come after years of struggle for the luxury retailer, which even took to selling its merchandise on Walmart’s (NYSE:WMT) website. Three years later, the company is finally shutting down all of its 38 stores as its business finally fails.
Lord & Taylor is starting liquidation sales at all of its stores in preparation for its closing. The company was bought by Le Tote last year in hopes of salvaging the business, but it looks like things took a turn for the worse sooner than expected, reports Retail Dives
notes.
While there’s no denying that the novel coronavirus has had an effect on retailers, Lord & Taylor was likely going to close down even without it. What’s more likely is that the coronavirus just sped the process up.
Lord & Taylor going out of business will bring an end to a 194-year-old company. There have been talks of Le Tote having trouble with Lord & Taylor before it even bought it. The company reportedly had trouble getting funds for the deal and managerial issues are said to have plagued it after the purchase was completed.
Here’s a segment from the recent press release announcing the liquidation sales, as acquired from Forbes.
“While we are still entertaining various opportunities, we believe it is prudent to simultaneously put the remainder of the stores into liquidation to maximize value of inventory for the estate while pursuing options for the Company’s brands.”
As of this writing, William White did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
