OT: Toys R Us Dead

This is a bummer though. I have a 4 and 8 year old and they still love going to Toys r us to pick out toys. Guess I better use these gift cards ASAP!!

But didn't. The other day I read an article about how Dominos recently took over the #1 spot for fast food pizza chains. This rather drastic change started taking place almost the moment that Brandon left there to lead Michigan's athletic department. I sense a pattern emerging.

Brick & mortar shopping will continue losing ground and this will only be one domino amongst many when all is said and done

Dave Brandon merely danced on its grave

and more about how hedge funds and private equity work. When they buy companies, they make those companies assume the debt (or most of it) that arises from the purchase. In other words, if I swoop in to buy your company for $1 million, I might cobble together $100k from my investors and just put the other 900k on the company's books.

Now much or even all the cash the company might have ends up being used to service the debt instead of being invested into improving the stores. The grave has already been dug.

I haven't read the entire thread, but allow me to do a pre-emptive FU to anyone gloating about this because they don't like DB. This is about thousands and thousands of people for whom even losing one paycheck means not being able to pay the rent or mortgage.

Still remember when my mom would basically use ToyRUs as my babysitter. She would just leave me there for an hour or two while she shopped at the Marshall’s next door, then I’d get to pick out a toy at the end.

Amazing that some folks have not moved on from Dave.

That a Coca Cola bottle top promotion will pull Toys R Us away from the abyss?

Dunno that anyone could have saved the company.  But if it was going to happen, they needed someone who was a visionary.  

 

I think any of us could have told them that wasn't Dave Brandon.

and my SHOP, BABA, and BZUN stocks are going through the roof.

There will only be a handful of big box stores left in a decade. The new model will be for brik-n-mortar to be used for showrooming only with same day deliveries by autonomous vehicles.

The automotive OEM's will be largely dead twenty years from now, too.

30 years ago they were on top of the world, after the 80s toy boom, the video game console market exploded, and they launched babies r us. Too bad they never adapted after that. Wayyy too late to the online revolution, never really streamlined their warehouse and shipping networks, even though the amazon template was right there for everybody to see. Then Bain capitol bought it and doomed it fully.

This wasn't Brandon's fault. That company had so much debt piled on in the leveraged buyout that it had to basically continue to make money as though Amazon didn't exist. I'm not saying that he did a great job... but it was probably an impossible one.

 

The real bad guys here are the group lead by Bain. Most of the pre recession leveraged buyouts are all facing the same issues. Lots of job losses in many sectors because of it.

I remember stepping into a Toys R Us ten years ago when my first child was born. the store was such a dump, not at all like my childhood. I'm surprised it lasted this long.

from Toys R Us that they had received as gifts over the last 3 years. Worrying that a bankruptcy Judge may make them worthless... I forced them to spend them three weeks ago. Got a sweet double barrel battery operated nerf gun....

didn't destroy Toys R'Us.  Many factors including Wal-Mart who went after them with predatory pricing, later Amazon who could provide the same selection at a lower cost.  And finally Wall Street who loaded the company up with debt it could never pay back as its revenue streams shrunk.  And finally management (prior to Brandon) who failed to see the value that online sales could bring to the company and never managed to put a functioning website for sales into practice.

 

Dave was simply there to burry the coffin, and collect a small fee. (relatively small)

Brick an mortar collapse. Already dozens of malls across the country are closing. Soon we will just be left with online shopping, grocery stores and Walmart.

I hate Wal-Mart. 

Just saying.

Was hollowed out and destroyed by Bain Capital, KKR & Co. and Vornado Realty Trust, leaving it with mountains of debt that it never got out from under. Thousands of people out of a job, and somehow nothing's been done to end this vampirism. 

Oh man. This will break my 9 year olds heart. It’s his favorite place to go. Changing times with brick and mortar stores. I see most of them going under due to Amazon.

More games, more toys, oh boy! I wanna be a Toys-R-Us kid! 

This is sad