A ‘Closed’ sign at the Bye Bye Baby store in Brooklyn, New York, Monday, February 6, 2023.
Stephanie Keith | Bloomberg | Getty Images
bed bath & beyond The company canceled Friday’s auction for the Bye Bye Baby Chain because it couldn’t find a buyer to keep the store open, but it’s not quite over for baby stores, CNBC reports. have understood.
The bidder decided that the chain had fallen in value and was no longer worth buying and withdrew from the auction. got very badBut there are still parties interested in the property, according to two people close to the matter who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
In an unusual move, Bed Bath & Beyond could accept bids for Bye Bye Baby as early as next week. The fate of the chain will not be finalized until a court hearing is scheduled Tuesday, when Bye Bye Baby approves the sale of its intellectual property to Dream On Me Industries. The company is a little-known retailer based in New Jersey and one of Buy Buy Baby’s former suppliers. agreed to buy Absent a higher bid, the trademark and digital assets will sell for $15.5 million.
Once considered the crown jewel of Bed, Bath & Beyond’s now crumbling empire, the baby chain is in the midst of a liquidation sale at 120 stores since its parent company was founded. Filed for bankruptcy protection on April 23.
As the auction process dragged on and Buy Buy Baby’s inventory dwindled, so did its value. About three months after the sold-out sale, there is little left to bid on other than the brand’s intellectual property, one of the people said.
“Especially at this point in the process, most of the value was in the IP. You can imagine that might not have been the case three months ago when the store was fully functional and open,” he said of the relationship. said the person.
Over the past few weeks, Bed Bath & Beyond has Pushed back many times and split Buy Buy Baby used an auction process run by bankruptcies to ensure higher bids and find companies willing to keep the stores open.
was planning an auction For Buy Buy Baby intellectual property only Last week we announced Dream on Me as a winner.
Bed Bath & Beyond has another auction scheduled for Friday, allowing buyers to bid on the chain as a going concern, and Dream on Me if it gets a higher sale price. bid may be prioritized.
However, the auction was canceled late Thursday after those bids did not materialize, a spokeswoman said in a statement.
Go Global Retail, a brand investment firm headed by Ankra Capital Advisors, has an interest in keeping about 75% of Buy By Baby’s stores open and has long sought to continue. Additional capital of $50 million CNBC previously reported that it was to boost bids. The company has already entered the baby business and now owns the children’s clothing company Janie & Jack. He declined to comment when contacted by CNBC.
If the auction had been held, the only remaining assets were employees, vacant stores, leases and other inventory, so the bid would have been $15.5 million for Dream on Me, which was presented as the chain’s intellectual property. It likely wouldn’t have been much higher, the paper said. sauce.
Acquisition-minded companies will likely have to close stores for several months to restock and reopen.
Overstock.com last month won the auction The auction price for Bed Bath & Beyond’s intellectual property and digital assets is $21.5 million. I decided to Rename a website with the same name Go to Bedbathandbeyond.com.
It’s unclear what Dream On Me will do if it ultimately beats Bye Bye Baby. The company did not respond to CNBC’s request for more information.
