Bankruptcy fallout: Toys R Us closing up to 182 stores

Joan Verdon | The (Bergen County, N.J.) Record

Show Caption Hide Caption Toy giant plans to close over 180 stores A major retailer is planning to close one fifth of it's US stores.

Toys R Us late Tuesday filed court documents outlining plans to close up to 182 stores as part of its bankruptcy reorganization plans.

The company noted that some closings may be avoided if it is able to negotiate more favorable lease terms. But most of the stores listed in the documents are expected to close as Toys R Us tries to reinvent itself as a leaner, smarter retailer.

Going-out-of-business sales are scheduled to begin in February and be completed in April.

FULL CLOSURE LIST: See if your local Toys R Us store is going to be closed

Toys R Us will shrink its store fleet by about 20%, or some 6.9 million square feet, if all 182 stores are closed.

"The reinvention of our brands requires that we make tough decisions about our priorities and focus," Toys R Us Chief Executive Dave Brandon said in a letter posted on the company's website Tuesday night.

In addition to closing stores, the company intends to convert a number of locations into combined Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores.

Earlier Tuesday, Toys R Us won Bankruptcy Court approval of a plan to pay landlords up to $1.3 million to extend store leases beyond an April 16 deadline.

Attorneys for Toys R Us argued before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Keith L. Phillips in his Richmond, Virginia, courtroom that it needed more time to decide which of its approximately 880 U.S. stores to close as the company reorganizes.

The retailers previously won court approval to extend to July 15 its deadline for filing a Chapter 11 reorganization plan.

Toys R Us currently is holding going-out-of-business sales at 25 stores in the United Kingdom. The U.K. arm of Toys R Us also is undergoing a restructuring.

When Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 19, it faced a 120-day deadline for rejecting store leases, but the company argued that because of the timing of the bankruptcy filing, it needed to focus on the holiday season, its most critical sales period, before deciding the fate of its stores. In December it won a ruling to extend the lease rejection deadline to April 16.

Toys 'R' Us makes a game out of holiday shopping A new augmented reality app will allow young Toys 'R' Us shoppers to unlock activities around the store.

The decision Tuesday gives Toys R Us the option to extend that deadline further, with the consent of landlords. The $1.3 million would be used to pay consenting landlords for certain attorneys' fees and rent claims.

Toys R Us has retained several firms that specialize in helping retailers close stores and reject leases.

In filing for bankruptcy, Toys R Us argued that a restructuring would ease its crippling debt burden and allow it to reinvent the company for the modern era.

