At Home, the home goods retailer, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced the closure of 26 stores as it tries to recover from a slowdown in sales and the effects of inflation and tariffs.
The company in Coppell, Texas, said five of its outlets in the Los Angeles region are marked for closure, including stores in Tustin, Costa Mesa, Pasadena, Foothill Ranch and Long Beach. It will also be shuttering outlets in San José, Sacramento and other areas.
At Home has signed a restructuring agreement with lenders to eliminate its nearly $2-billion debt and secure $200 million in capital to support its restructuring process.
“We are pleased to have reached this agreement with our lenders, which represents a critical and positive advancement of our work to best position At Home for the future,” Chief Executive Brad Weston said in a news release.
The company operates 260 stores in 40 states. Some 70 million customers visit its stores annually and about 53 million customers visit its website in a year. It employs about 7,170 people.
At Home joins an expanding list of retailers to close stores this year. LL Flooring, the flooring retailer formerly known as Lumber Liquidators, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last August and announced that it would close about a quarter of its locations nationwide.
This is not the first time At Home has filed for bankruptcy protection, the company explained in its filing. Garden Ridge, At Home’s former name, needed similar relief in 2004 to address lease and contract obligations.
At Home was founded in 1979 under the name Garden Ridge Pottery. It was later shortened to Garden Ridge. It went public and expanded its operations beyond Texas in the mid-1990s. It changed its name to At Home in 2014 and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange two years later.
Hellman & Friedman, a global private equity firm, acquired the company in 2021 and took the company private.
The company said it has been hit by inflation, the slowing growth of demand for home goods and the pivot to online shopping. This year, higher import tariffs dealt another blow to its business.
“The newly imposed tariffs and the uncertainty of ongoing U.S. trade negotiations intensified the financial pressure on the company, accelerating the need for a comprehensive solution,” the company said in its filing.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
