In the most recent phase of the company's financial turmoil, Joann, a retailer of textiles and crafts that has provided quilters, seamstresses, and school projects with materials for 80 years, announced that it will close all of its locations.
About a month after Joann declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time in less than a year, the company's assets were put up for auction on Friday. As part of the bankruptcy process, Joann declared earlier in February that it will shut 500 of its 800 surviving locations.
According to a news statement from Joann, the financial services firm GA Group, the auction's successful bidder, and a lender purchased "substantially all of JOANN's assets." According to the firm, GA Group intends to shut down its operations and hold going-out-of-business sales at every store, subject to bankruptcy court clearance.
Its leadership "made every possible effort to pursue a more favorable outcome that would keep the company in business," according to a statement from Joann.
Based in Hudson, Ohio, Joann was once known as Jo-Ann Fabrics. With an abundance of vibrant yarns and rolls of fabric that filled whole aisles, along with sewing machines, seasonal goods, and other crafting materials, the chain's retail locations in 49 states have long been a favorite among creative crafters.
Joann, a publicly traded business at the time, went bankrupt in March 2024 to pay off its debt and regain private control. The business blamed a difficult retail climate for its poor sales. August 2024 saw the closure of that initial application.
In the months that followed, the retailer's decline persisted. Joann said in a statement that the company faced "significant and lasting challenges in the retail environment, which, coupled with our current financial position and constrained inventory levels, have forced us to take this step" when it announced earlier in February that it would close more than half of its stores.
Although Joann stated that the closing deals would start right away, it was unclear when the stores would close and operations would be wound down. It has "generally stopped purchasing goods and services except those that it believes are essential to support an orderly wind-down of operations," Joann said in a message to suppliers. A request for further information on Monday was not immediately answered by GA Group.
The closures disappointed many at-home makers, like Alexandria, Louisiana's 38-year-old Stacey Brumfield. Because it is the only store in the area that provides the yarn she needs for her knitting and crocheting projects, Ms. Brumfield has been shopping at her neighborhood Joann's for over ten years.
"They probably had whatever you needed, and it was going to be the quality you wanted," she said, adding that it would be "a lot more difficult" to locate the items she often purchased there.
0 Comments