HARLINGEN — Electronics giant RadioShack Corp. late Wednesday night filed bankruptcy for the second time in just two years.
The Chapter 11 reorganization filing included a statement by the Fort Worth-based company that it will close 200 of its 1,500 locations, although no definitive list has been revealed.
In Harlingen, RadioShack operates stores at 2000 South Expressway 83 and 601 South Expressway 83 along with a kiosk location. It also has a store in San Benito at 1145 Ross Road.
RadioShack is owned by General Wireless Operations Inc., a joint venture between hedge fund Standard General and Sprint. After the first bankruptcy just more than two years ago, the electronics retailer partnered with Sprint and began co-branding stores.
“Since emerging from bankruptcy two years ago as a privately owned company, our team has made progress in stabilizing operations and achieving profitability in the retail business, while our partner Sprint managed the mobility business,” chief executive Dene Rogers said in a statement.
RadioShack found itself behind a major technology curve when the explosion of the mobile phone industry caught it flat-footed.
To bridge that gap, the retailer partnered with Sprint two years ago and placed small phone stores inside RadioShack electronics stores.
But the marriage apparently hasn’t worked.
Sprint has lagged far behind Verizon and AT&T as a mobile carrier. To counter that, Sprint has been offering steep discounts to pull up lagging sales which dropped “precipitously” in the fourth quarter of 2016, the company said in the statement.
“The Sprint relationship did not yield the benefits” RadioShack expected, the statement said.
In the filing, RadioShack listed assets and liabilities in the range of $100 million to $500 million.
RadioShack will close 200 stores and will evaluate options on the remaining 1,300, the company said in the statement. During its first bankruptcy, RadioShack closed about 2,400 stores.
