Sunday, April 19, 2020

Last Call For The Retail Apocalypse

The mall, galleria, shopping center near you will most likely never reopen.  It's time for communities to consider rezoning them as mixed-use affordable housing with a few necessary stores like food shops and day care centers, because the era of the mall store is now officially coming to a bloody, horrific end.

Neiman Marcus Group is preparing to seek bankruptcy protection as soon as this week, becoming the first major U.S. department store operator to succumb to the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak, people familiar with the matter said.
The debt-laden Dallas-based company has been left with few options after the pandemic forced it to temporarily shut all 43 of its Neiman Marcus locations, roughly two dozen Last Call stores and its two Bergdorf Goodman stores in New York. 
Neiman Marcus is in the final stages of negotiating a loan with its creditors totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, which would sustain some of its operations during bankruptcy proceedings, according to the sources. It has also furloughed many of its roughly 14,000 employees. 
The bankruptcy filing could come within days, though the timing could slip, the sources said. Neiman Marcus skipped millions of dollars in debt payments last week, including one that only gave the company a few days to avoid a default. 
Neiman Marcus’ borrowings total about $4.8 billion, according to credit ratings firm Standard & Poor’s. Some of this debt is the legacy of its $6 billion leveraged buyout in 2013 by its owners, private equity firm Ares Management Corp and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB). 
The sources requested anonymity because the bankruptcy preparations are confidential. Neiman Marcus and Ares declined to comment, while CPPIB representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 
Other department store operators that have also had to close their stores are battling to avoid Neiman Marcus’ fate. Macy’s Inc and Nordstrom Inc have been rushing to secure new financing, such as by borrowing against some of their real estate. J.C. Penney Co Inc is contemplating a bankruptcy filing as a way to rework its unsustainable finances and save money on looming debt payments, Reuters reported last week. 
A bankruptcy filing would be a grim milestone that Neiman Marcus has spent the last few years trying to avoid. It pushed out due dates on its financial obligations last year in a restructuring deal with some creditors, though the transactions added to Neiman Marcus’ interest expenses.

Macy's, Nordstrrom's, Neiman-Marcus, they're not surviving this.  They're done, or soon will be, gone the way of Radio Shack, Circuit City, and Toys R Us.  Your local mall was always done for, all COVID-19 did was to speed up the process.

The mall's not coming back.  The stores are not coming back.  The jobs aren't coming back.  And in a consumer-based retail economy, that spells a major shift in our shared economic future ahead.

You thought things were bad in 2009?

Give it a few months.

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