Shares of Eddie Bauer Holdings had been trading for about 25 cents since last week.

For the three months ended April 4, Eddie Bauer’s loss increased to $44.5 million, or $1.44 a share from $19.3 million, or 63 cents, a year earlier. Sales at full-price and outlet stores open at least a year declined 13.7 percent, in contrast to a 0.5 percent increase a year earlier. (Sales were hurt in part by Canadian exchange rates.) On top of the sales declines, the company had $427 million in debt and was struggling in the tight credit market.

In a court filing, the company said its debt load was a result of loans it took on when its onetime parent company, Spiegel, filed for bankruptcy in 2003. Eddie Bauer took on $300 million in debt, as well as Spiegel’s benefits and pension plans. The retailer said that about 50 percent of its earnings now go toward paying down that debt.

Even after cutting costs as part of its turnaround, Eddie Bauer made additional reductions. In January, it cut about 15 percent of its nonretail staff. The chain said it would also freeze salaries, limit its capital spending to about $15 million, rethink some benefits programs, reduce the size of its board and the board’s compensation, and lower Mr. Fiske’s salary by 10 percent for the rest of the year.

Eddie Bauer’s proposed buyer, CCMP, is a middle-market private equity firm that once served as a buyout arm of JPMorgan Chase. Last year, it hired Greg Brenneman, who helped fix Burger King and Continental Airlines, as its chairman.

CCMP first took a look at Eddie Bauer in 2004, but was dissuaded from making an investment because the company was then focused on becoming a women’s casual apparel chain, along the lines of J. Jill or Talbots.

“When we looked at it in 2004, we thought management was taking it in the wrong direction,” Mr. Lynch of CCMP said. “Frankly, it had lost its way.”

But a new management team led by Mr. Fiske began returning the company, founded in Seattle in 1920, back toward its outdoor adventure roots. (After nearly freezing to death during a hunting trip in the 1930s, the founder, Eddie Bauer, designed and eventually patented a quilted goose-down jacket.)