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Bed Bath and Beyond files for bankruptcy
- toomuchtodo 4y agohttps://archive.is/EtJGh https://archive.is/EtJGh Previous: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35675373 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35675373
- aliljet 4y agoThis is surprisingly old news, but still somewhat interesting. I'm curious what led to this being posted today?
- ketzu 4y agoAFAIK it is the newest meme stock, it popped up on the reddit front page the previous few days.
- michaelmcdonald 4y agoBBBY has been a meme stock for quite some time over the last couple of years.
- kube-system 4y agoIt has been a meme stock at least since the whole gamestop thing in 2020/2021
- ketzu 4y agoBack then the three big ones seemed to be Blackberry, AMC and Gamestop. If r/BBBY stats is anything to go by, I would say it wasn't that popular before mid 2022 [1] and is gaining traction since january. But it might have been bigger than I noticed. [1] https://subredditstats.com/r/BBBY https://subredditstats.com/r/BBBY
- jutrewag 4y ago[dead]
- humanlion87 4y agoThey officially only filed for bankruptcy this weekend. Everybody (except the retail investors who were buying their stock offerings) knew this was coming.
- bookofjoe 4y ago>Individual investors who continued to back Bed Bath & Beyond during its final months, when it was flooding the market with shares, will likely be wiped out in chapter 11, which prioritizes the repayment of debt over shareholder recoveries. Source:https://www.wsj.com/articles/bed-bath-beyond-files-for-bankruptcy-cc7e8b40 https://www.wsj.com/articles/bed-bath-beyond-files-for-bankr... https://archive.ph/tSjT1 https://archive.ph/tSjT1
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dragontamer 4y agoBBBY defaulted on its debt in December. Defaulting doesn't mean bankruptcy however. The bondholders could legally start the bankruptcy process, but presumably the bondholders wanted to see how the stock-selling deal would pan out. Now that the shares are under 20-cents and an additional 600+ million shares have been dumped to the market (from ~117 million in December 2022 to over 700-million today), its clear that the shareholders have been tapped out.
- jedberg 4y agoYesterday was the last day to use the coupons. They officially enter bankruptcy today.
- humanlion87 4y agoI find the whole situation fascinating. Bed Bath continued to sell hundreds of millions of shares while they were preparing for bankruptcy and retail investors (or meme stock investors) continued to buy them. I assume Bed Bath did all the paperwork that is necessary (like calling out risks, that the raised capital will go to creditors first, etc) for such a stock sale. But it is clear they were doing it out of bad-faith to the new investors. As usual Matt Levine's take on this is a good read.
- cush 4y agoWhat's Matt Levine's take?
- bonzini 4y agoProbably https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-30/bed-bath-beyond-has-more-stock-to-sell https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-30/bed-ba...
- toomuchtodo 4y agohttps://archive.is/svqGg https://archive.is/svqGg
- exsf0859 4y agoHe's covered the decline of BBBY many times in his newsletter, explaining the financial details and shaking his head each time. His Monday April 24th, 2023 newsletter, titled "Bed Bath Moves Beyond", covers the situation once again. It ends: "Bed Bath saw that its retail shareholders wanted to throw their money away, and that its sophisticated lenders wanted to get their money back, and realized that there was a trade to be done that would make everyone, temporarily, happy. So it did the trade. It’s amazing. The lawsuits are gonna be great."
- mrguyorama 4y ago>The lawsuits are gonna be great. Why can you be sued because idiots convinced themselves you were a good buy while you were showing everyone your terrible finances?
- sizzzzlerz 4y agoThe store in my local mall closed last year and another one I occasionally visit had been looking pretty forlorn. Sure signs things were looking grim. Too bad. It was a good place to pick up kitchen things.
- DTanner 4y agoJust watched a documentary about a deranged BBBY superfan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrU0DAAylEk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrU0DAAylEk In one of his videos I he was standing in an empty parking lot shouting into a megaphone that Bed Bath & Beyond would never go bankrupt. I think he did the same thing in front of Lehman brothers (minus the megaphone).
- this_user 4y agoHe has also been stalking the BBBY CEO, but has now made his Twitter account private, and has delete a lot of his YT videos from the last few months.
- nickthegreek 4y agoNothing quite like a BBB store closing sale. I've gotten some great items at 40% off over the past few years as they have been closing stores. Only 1 left around me, which is about to close.
- addaon 4y ago40% off actual price, or 40% off list price? Keep in mind this is a company whose business model is to add 20% beyond normal retail price to all items, then distribute 20% off coupons to the entire population of the inner solar system so that people feel like they're getting a "deal" by reducing items to their normal retail margins.
- jjeaff 4y agoThe standard practice for store liquidation is to raise all prices to full MSRP, then start out with a 20% or so storewide discount. Then you start discounting incrementally as products sell off.
- ghaff 4y agoThe companies that run liquidations know what they're doing. While there's still a lot of stock in the store, the "bargains" that people rush in to get mostly aren't. And, by the time there are genuine bargains, things have been pretty picked over and I also suspect a lot of people buy bargains at that point that they don't need and wouldn't otherwise get.
- bombcar 4y agoExactly. The best bargains I’ve gotten at actual liquidations (not store closings which are often manned by the store itself and not a liquidator) have been the things nobody knew how to price. Like buying the displays or similar.
- AlbertCory 4y agoSomeday, all those 20% off coupons they mailed out will be as quaint a collector's item as the America Online CD's.
- michaelsbradley 4y agoI went to a nearby store in St. Louis about five months ago on a Saturday afternoon. It was sparkling clean (with one exception), shelves were stocked bottom to top and many items were marked with discounts. But there were only two other customers in the store, besides my s.o., while we were in there for around 30 minutes. The employees seemed to be wandering around with no clear tasks. The exception to overall cleanliness was that a horrible smell came from the public mens restroom when I opened the door, and I found that one of the toilet stalls was thoroughly smeared (floor, stall walls, toilet itself) with feces. It didn't look fresh... bleh, so disgusting. Anyway, after exiting the building I told my s.o. that surely BBBY is not long for bankruptcy.
- bearjaws 4y agoThis is a huge loss IMO, buying kitchen supplies and bedding on Amazon is complete shit. Target isn't much better due to lack of variety and types of bedding. I've bought the same bed sheets for 5+ years, a few months ago I bought new ones since some bleach got spilt on one set, it comes in and I could tell immediately the quality was far worse. One wash later, its ripping & fraying. Thankfully I could return them. Sure enough the seller is a fake typo squatted version of the original seller. This isn't even my only example, bought a kitchen cutlery set from Amazon during the pandemic since my old one had the handles separating. I get the new set, ONE run in the dish washer and they start to RUST. Hundreds of positive reviews of course. BBB always had high quality (and expensive) items, I had my last set of BBB cutlery for over a decade.
- ytreyrty 4y agowal mart and department stores exist. bed bath and beyond was almost always super overpriced, and the quality on a lot of things isnt the best.
- sieabahlpark 4y ago[dead]
- mosdl 4y agoAgreed, you basically now only have discounters who sell in store small appliances/kitchen supplies. It must not be profitable enough since there are really no other stores in that market other then BBB.
- Encrypt-Keeper 4y agoNot sure what you mean, most if not all department stores today sell small kitchen appliances and supplies. From Target and Walmart to Macys
- bombcar 4y agoBest Buy (!!!) has great deals on appliances especially clearance.
- zackmorris 4y agoI have no great love for BBB, but they saved me countless times when I was looking for last-minute gift ideas. The store closest to me was always packed, and prices were just enough higher than other stores that I figured they were making bank. As the #1 place people think of for just about anything domestic, I don't know how they could be mismanaged so badly that the whole chain goes under?! On the flip side, they remind me of all of the ills of the 2000s: McMansions, SUVs, 19 Kids and Counting, excessive wedding registries, homogenization of cities, globalization, just on an on, a fiscally liberal/socially conservative vision of 'Merika which I don't subscribe to. So I guess it makes sense that they imploded as people abandoned materialism post-pandemic? I think most brick and mortar stores will close by end of decade. To be replaced by drone delivery and service work until 3D printed androids take over those jobs too. Commercial real estate may never be priced higher than it is right now. It will be curious to find out what's keeping rents so high, but I suspect that money is funding retirements and policing the world. When young people pull the plug, it will be interesting to watch more entrenched power structures crumble.
- sethd 4y ago> people abandoned materialism post-pandemic Please don’t take this the wrong way, but you might be living in a bit of bubble.
- ghaff 4y ago>I don't know how they could be mismanaged so badly that the whole chain goes under?! They're not the first. Linens n' Things was another big chain in a similar vein that went bankrupt. Mostly I went into Bed Bath and Beyond if I wanted to actually look at and touch cooking utensils. Their selection tended to be better than places like Target. (Sur la Table is another chain for that kind of thing but there seem to be fewer of those around.) I assume Bed Bath and Beyond's revenue skewed towards couples setting up a first home.
- SkyPuncher 4y agoI've found they always ended up in this weird "quality" gray area. They sell a bunch of mid-tier items that don't really offer any actual quality or value over low-tier items. For items I really care about, I can spend a bit more and get an actual, high quality item.
- nate 4y agoI'm gonna miss it. I always thought it had an interesting Job to be Done when I observed my behavior with the store. We had one a few blocks from my home, and though I order from Amazon like I'm trying to win some kind of game, I'd go to BBB when I needed something that day and didn't want to spend any time on research. It was almost guaranteed that the thing I'd buy would just naturally be at the top of a review site like Wirecutter and it saved me hours or days of research. Like the day my allergies were just nuts and I realized I probably needed an air purifier in the house, and an hour later instantly obtained the best in class product. During the pandemic they got away from this model and started selling their own copy cat brands. Which some surmise as their final nail in the coffin because no one wanted that stuff. It broke the original Job I had looked for them to solve. Wonder if there's something that will fill its place. I also thought b8ta had another interesting place there. Instant purchase of something that's on a list you often trust without need to actually research. But clearly it's tough doing retail even with a bunch of fans.
- ghaff 4y agoIt seems to be a tough category. As I mentioned in another comment, another 500+ store chain in this category went bankrupt maybe a couple decades ago. Some of it may be demographics. I would assume their typical demographic is probably thirty-something to maybe 40-something couples. Younger people are mostly not outfitting houses with mid-tier nice stuff and older people mostly have all this crap and may need an occasional replacement but not much more than that. These days I mostly go to a review site like Wirecutter or a sister site, a food blog, or somewhere like Cook's Illustrated and mostly order whatever they recommend and it's fine.
- rblatz 4y agoThat's the role Costco has been filling for a lot of Americans recently. Most of the time you are going to find something at a decent price, that may not be best in class but at least it's going to be near the top of the price/utility curve.
- el_benhameen 4y agoI’ve switched a large percentage of my shopping to Costco for this reason. Like Amazon, I can return it no questions asked if it sucks. Unlike Amazon, it probably won’t suck.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- andrewmcwatters 4y agoAnecdotally, the last time I went to Bed Bath and Beyond, it was an absolute ghost town. No one was there, the prices were absolutely garbage, and the inventory was no better than anything you'd find literally anywhere else. I looked around and thought to myself, "Wow, I bet their corporate rent costs a fortune to just be here, and they're probably burning cash hand over fist." I'm not surprised in the slightest. Constantly amazed by businesses who seem to "still be in business," but the writing is on the wall and they're clearly zombie companies[1] or two feet in the grave. [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=is+bed+bath+and+beyond+a+zombie+company https://www.google.com/search?q=is+bed+bath+and+beyond+a+zom...
- linsomniac 4y ago>The prices are garbage I get the feeling that BBB, like Kohl's and Joann's, are places you just don't shop unless you have a coupon, because there's always a 30% coupon.
- no_wizard 4y agoKohl's doesn't have great coupons unless you have a credit card with them anymore. I used to shop there alot for the sales + coupon at the end of each season, and now its only worth it if you have a credit card with them
- tobias2014 4y agoAdd Michaels, same story with always 20% off. They even have those coupons to scan at the registers, you just have to mention it.
- kylehotchkiss 4y agoGreat for those nice cutting mat desk pads!
- darkhelmet 4y agoIt's not just BBB. This description could apply to a good number of chain stores these days. There are exceptions but this seems to be an increasing trend. There are ghost town stores everywhere you look. If I make a trip to (for example) Target, it feels nothing like Target of 20 years ago. The chances are good that they don't have what I hoped to find there. I'm getting used to being regularly disappointed and am learning to plan around waiting for an Amazon delivery. This seems to be a vicious circle. The thing stores had which Amazon didn't was that they used to have a decent selection of things you could get "right now" and they're giving up on that niche to try and compete on price. I don't see this ending well.
- withinrafael 4y agoSad times. Its jam-packed aisles, fake coupons, SodaStream CO2 return experience, and products were all pretty terrible. But a small piece of me will miss the curtains and bedding on display. They offered a bit more variety than Costco, Target, Ross, Home Goods, etc.
- unstatusthequo 4y agoWhat will our mailboxes do without all those huge coupon sheets?
- hackingthenews 4y agoWhat is the chance that someone saves them from bankruptcy?
- bombcar 4y agoNot zero but I would expect someone to just buy the name from the liquidators instead. Say if Home Depot decided they wanted to expand the furnishings/decor side.
- coffeebeqn 4y agoI mean maybe some private equity company sees some dirty arbitrage in looting the corpse at best. Is there really any value to it?
- rossdavidh 4y agoIt's kind of like when you see a headline that "So and So Has Died" and you think to yourself, "so and so was still alive?"
- woeirua 4y agoThe big loss here is Buy Buy Baby. They really had a nice market niche that they were filling but Bed Bath and Beyond wrecked it. Now I have no idea where you will go to see and buy nicer baby items in person.
- floren 4y agoNordstrom has a small selection of high-end baby stuff. There's also Pottery Barn Kids if you really hate your wallet.