HARLINGEN — Teen fashion chain rue21 announced over the weekend it would close 400 of its 1,000 stores, including one at Valle Vista Mall.
Two additional area rue21 stores, one at Rio Grande Premium Outlets in Mercedes and another at Sunrise Mall in Brownsville, also will be shutting down.
The company provided no details of when the stores would actually close, or whether employees at those stores would be offered severance or the chance at another job within the chain.
“It’s true — we are closing some stores,” the company posted on its website and Facebook page. “It was a difficult but necessary decision.”
The rue21 store closings mark the latest in a rapidly deteriorating retail business climate for many brick-and-mortar chains which are finding life difficult when it comes to competing with online retailers.
Those online retailers often offer merchandise at lower prices than is possible for retailers who have made major investments in brick-and-mortar stores at malls and elsewhere.
JC Penney, Macy’s, Sears and Kmart have announced major store closures this year, along with chains like Payless, Crocs, BCBG, Abercrombie and Fitch and Guess.
Rue21 Inc. is an American specialty retailer of young men and women’s casual apparel and accessories headquartered in the Pittsburgh suburb of Warrendale, Pennsylvania.
The company exited Chapter 11 as rue21 Inc. in 2003, and embarked on an ambitious plan to expand its then-170 stores.
The chain began to aggressively target underserved markets. In 2009, the Harlingen store opened as the company’s 500th location. By 2013, the chain had opened its No. 1,000 store, in Enid, Oklahoma.
In 2013, Apax Partners, a global private equity firm, acquired the company and took it private.
This month Debtwire reported rue21 had missed interest payments, saying rue21’s total debt was around $824 million and it was attempting to negotiate new lines of credit.
