Jo Ann Fabrics enters bankruptcy for the 2nd. time

[TheFugitive]

Fabric and crafts retailer Jo Ann Fabrics has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time in a year.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/bankruptcy/jo-ann-fabrics-files-for-bankruptcy-again/ar-AA1xfwn8?ocid=BingNewsVerp

After the prior filing Jo Ann emerged as a private company with what they claimed was a much stronger balance sheet.  This new filing appears to be some sort of maneuvering preparing to try and sell the company.  All well and good so long as you are not a vendor who sold them something.

This is an impressively large company, much larger than I'd realized.  According to the article they have "approximately 800 stores along with 40 distribution centers. JOANN currently employs 19,000 employees, 3,400 of whom are full-time and 15,600 are part-time."

Having been there and done that I can definitely tell you that filing bankruptcy is definitely not better the second time around.  Although it looks like they could survive as a scaled-down company (not unlike how Big Lots' last-minute rescuer plans to pare down from 1300 to under 400 stores).

[TheFugitive]

As predicted Jo Ann Fabrics will close roughly 500 out of their 800 store locations.  A list of local closings here in PA was just posted.

https://patch.com/pennsylvania/pittsburgh/major-retailer-closing-many-pittsburgh-stores-see-which-ones-here

As I suspected that includes Great Southern Shopping Center in Bridgeville.  It is about to enter a vacancy crisis as it just lost Big Lots and Party City, and several other stores that closed previously were not replaced.