Tag Archives: ritz

News, The Daily Feed
By

More Ritz closings possible, some changes certain

Photo courtesy of
‘KitsWoodinville’
courtesy of ‘Seven_Null7’

Even after the closings and liquidations earlier in the year, Ritz Camera has been unsuccessful in working out their bankruptcy reorganization. Like a lot of companies this last year, Ritz has been unable to secure needed funding. Many news outlets reported their intention to petition the court for permission to have an auction for the company a week from today. I’ve checked the Delaware filings and they did indeed get permission to proceed with an auction. The auction will happen at the office of their bankruptcy lawyers in New York and the results will be presented to the bankruptcy court on the 23rd.

It seems unlikely they won’t work something out, but if they can’t arrange a sale they’ll endeavor to start liquidation by the 24th. It’s an aggressive schedule because Ritz would like to pull the plug and get out of their leases as quickly as possible. Some of their landlords were taking issue with the speed Ritz is trying to get this done, but since the court ruled to allow the auction it seems that they were overruled.

Unless one of the two supposed prospective buyers purchases all their assets, including the name, it looks like we’ll see the remaining DC-area Ritz stores either rebrand or shut their doors entirely.

The Daily Feed
By

Ritz Camera closeouts start tomorrow

Photo courtesy of
‘Day 60: Going Out of Business’
courtesy of ‘quinn.anya’

I spent several years of my young life working in Uncle Chuck’s Camera Emporium Wolf Camera, so on my priority list going into a Ritz Camera ranks somewhere between… swapping hankerchiefs with SARS carriers and stabbing myself in the face.

However, Dealmac reveals that the closeout sales start tomorrow. They’re closing almost half their stores as part of their chapter 11 restructuring and apparently will be discounting items to get them off the shelves. Personally I’m not optimistic the deals will be that great or include many worthwhile things; I imagine that anything that can be moved will likely be shuffled out to more profitable stores – they still have about 400 that will continue to do business. However it should not be a repeat of the Circuit City nonsense where a 3rd party liquidator peddles things at list prices that are above what you’d pay anywhere – these sales are still through Ritz themselves as they try to reorg.

If you want to give it a shot I’ve culled all the closing stores from our surrounding area from the (annoyingly not-sorted-by-state list) PDF linked in the Dealmac article. It looks like all the ones in our area are closing, but check the list below the jump before you head out just to be sure. Continue reading →