By Maria Halkias The Dallas Morning News
The owner of Men’s Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank filed for bankruptcy on Sunday and so did Lord & Taylor, the oldest U.S. department store.
Both were expected to be added to growing list of U.S. retail companies that can’t fix the COVID-19 pandemic damage to their businesses without shedding debt and weak store locations under the protection of bankruptcy. About 40 retail companies have filed for bankruptcy so far this year and that’s more than all of last year.
Tailored Brands filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas in Houston and Corpus Christi which is also handling the bankruptcy cases of Dallas-based Neiman Marcus, Plano-based J.C. Penney and Houston-based Stage Stores, the parent company for Bealls and Palais Royal.
The men’s apparel company said it has received support for its restructuring from 75% of its senior lenders. It expects to shed $630 million in debt and emerge from bankruptcy. It has a $500 million loan from its existing lenders to use to operate in bankruptcy and convert it to a new loan to use to exit Chapter 11.
Last month, Tailored Brands said it would close 500 stores, but it hasn’t yet said which locations will close. Tailored Brands owns two more men’s apparel brands, K&G in the U.S. and Moores Clothing for Men, a chain of 126 stores in Canada.
In Texas, the company operates 60 Men’s Wearhouse stores, 42 Jos. A. Bank locations and 12 K&G stores.
Six years ago Men’s Warehouse paid $1.8 billion to buy competitor Jos. A. Bank ending a several-month hostile takeover.
Lord & Taylor, which was founded in 1826, has been 40 stores, but it’s been gone from Texas for several years.
One of the last stores it operated here was at the Shops at Willow Bend in Plano. The Lord & Taylor building was torn down in 2010 to make way for a new Crate & Barrel store that opened the following year. The Plano store was an original anchor of the mall that opened in 2001. The department store closed in 2003.
When it came to Texas in 1974, Lord & Taylor opened in NorthPark Center and Houston Galleria. At NorthPark, the store was torn down to make way for a new section that includes Nordstrom in the mall’s major redevelopment completed in 2006.
