Media Mention
Claire's went from millennial rite of passage to Gen Alpha washout. But don't count out the mall icon yet.
Fast Company
Jonathan Shenson, Partner in the Bankruptcy, Reorganization & Capital Recovery Group, shared his thoughts with Fast Company on the future of retailer Claire’s, following the company’s second bankruptcy filing and its recent acquisition by private equity firm Ames Watson.
Excerpts
“It’s not surprising that Claire’s filed for bankruptcy again, but what is surprising is that there might actually be a happy ending here, where something viable emerges,” Shenson says.
However, this hasn’t been true across the board. Lower-end malls that haven’t been renovated are declining. And yet Claire’s has a gargantuan 3,000-store footprint, which means its stores blanket the entire retail landscape in the U.S. (For comparison, Gap has only 380 stores, and Target has 2,000.) “Claire’s model was kind of like Starbucks, with one at every corner,” says Shenson. But he points out that more than half of the locations were not profitable.
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