KB Toys files for bankruptcy protection

[greyl]

Source: Baltimore Business Journal

KB Toys Inc. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with plans of closing its chain of stores.

The toy retailer cited sharp declines in consumer spending for the filing.

KB has stores five stores in Greater Baltimore -- including Eastpoint Mall, White Marsh Mall, Arundel Mills Mall, Marley Station and Annapolis Mall — and 460 locations company wide, according to the company.

The Massachusetts-based toy store chain is located in shopping malls and has faced financial struggles off and on for several years as it competes with big-box rivals.

Read more: http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2008/12/08/daily60.html

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Source: AP

NEW YORK – In another sign of the grim holiday season, KB Toys filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time in four years on Thursday and plans to begin going-out-of business sales at its stores immediately.

The 86-year-old company said in a filing that its debt is "directly attributable to a sudden and sharp decline in consumer sales" because of the poor economy.

That a toy retailer filed for bankruptcy just before Christmas shows how bleak things have become, since such stores make up to half of their sales during the holidays. But analysts expect toy sales this holiday season to be flat or down slightly from last year's total of $10.4 billion, according to market research firm NPD Group, because consumers are cutting back amid the recession.

Read More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081211/ap_on_bi_ge/kb_toys_bankruptcy

Go Shopping: http://www.kbtoys.com

[Skink]

1. Could be worse we could have a Cholera epidemic.

[glowing]

2. They should have pulled away from the cheap imports.

There is already Toys r Us, Walmart, Target, K-Mart.. They should have pulled away from the cheap imports and brought to its stores safe product toys, educational toys, and American toys. It would have given parents a store with safe options, educational options, and a peace of mind. Perhaps in their re-organization process they will decide to market this option. Or maybe they'll go belly up. It would be nice to have a major toy store care more about safe products, rather than more cheap import crap items.. We already have too many of those stores.

[jetphixer]

3. Toy Store

Wen i was living around hte Chicago area there was one called Zanney Brainney. Had high quality an stuff mostly American made

[AllentownJake]

5. They unfortunately went out of business

Their consumer base also happened to be tech savy and willing to shop on-line.

[Frank Cannon]

11. There was one in Dallas like this called Edunation.

It was one of the coolest toy stores I'd ever been in. But their stuff wasn't cheap. And it, too, went out of business several years ago.

[AllentownJake]

4. Not surprising

They were Mall based and had less selection than all the other toy stores and for the most part always were a little more expensive.

Being in the Mall meant they had higher overhead and less space.

I think their business was primarily impusle buys to calm down or bribe kids to behave themselves.

Sad though for the store managers. Finding another job in retail that can feed your family right now is going to be nearly impossible.

[glowing]

7. Actually, in the last 5yrs, there toys were cheaper than Toys r us or Walmart.

Trying to compete I suppose.. but I've found a lot of stuff that is actually much cheaper than in Walmart even.

[AllentownJake]

8. Just thinking when I was a kid.

The stuff was always more expensive there and they had less toys. I have to say though they did move out of the higher traffic mall in my area about 5 years ago. My guess was the rent.

[blue_onyx]

6. I walked passed a KB store last week...

and I remember thinking to myself, "I wonder how much longer they'll be around?" I guess I got my answer.

[greengestalt]

9. Good riddance and rot in H-ll

KB toys was one of the first big pushes to modern "Outsourcing". They set the stage for the modern war on the middle class that has done far more damage to America than many, many 9/11s in terms of destruction in wages and living standards, feelings of security, belief that America is a good country.


In the early 90s, the head of the business closed down its USA plant, laying off 20,000 people. He'd used the threat of an overseas move to stagnate wages for 8 years despite record profits. So, guarded by armed police, he told them all effectively "Hahaha suckers" and went away locking the chain on the fenced off plant.


Well, despite "Death camp wages" (where workers work 14 hour days and slowly starve, no kidding) it actually cost more to produce. Why? Well "The cost of FUEL" even at 90's boom prices alone made the difference. Then there was piracy, both by modern RL pirates and the very subcontractors using the same equipment to make knock-offs, bribery at every level, strikes by workers broken up by the millitary machine gunning them dead...

So, did they go out of business or crawl back to the workers in the USA? No. They not only did not face Tariffs, they got "Tax Breaks" and "Subsidies". New Deal era measures meant to keep jobs in the states. But just as it became legal to declare something "Made in the USA" by having Puerto Ricans put the flag sticker on "Slave Made Goods Flom Amiable Venelable Cathay", pork-barrel corporate welfare that should have been fraud at best and treason at worst was allowed.


To save our country, we can't just push for more wages and a few protection measures. We did that after the Depression. It got good for a while, but the rich elite just went back to taking and taking and taking an inch at a time till they hoarded enough wealth to threaten to collapse the system again.


We can't afford another return to a "Consumer society". We need to re-think society so that wealth simply becomes impossible. Or, rather, so that having excess wealth by ANYONE makes one more hated than the worst pariahs are now. The rich elite won't be able to ruin us by hoarding posessions if we don't admire them for it. IMHO, their most difficult task was to establish in civilization the concept that a mountain of wealth was good for anything other than giving to at least the members of one's own tribe and that tribe sharing or trading the wealth with other tribes for peace/prestige power.

[johnnyrocket]

10. I have zero concern for a retailer closing, they can grow or shrink as needed.

It's not like they hire high wage workers.

Over built retail is the scourge of excess. And we need lots of purging.

[DainBramaged]

13. When only the big box stores like Wal-Mart and Target are left, then what?

Main Street was decimated years ago (the florist in the town where I work closed last week, they'd been there for over 30 years). Circuit City will soon be gone, leaving only Best Buy as the National electronics retail chain. How much more contraction can the country take? I think your "grow or shrink" as needed is way off the mark.

[DainBramaged]

12. This isn't the first time they have filed. I think they did it a few years ago.

They have roughly 450 total stores. (That's a lot of people yet again out of work.)

[sofa king]

14. I always thought KB Toys was a head shop.

[Ian David]

15. Another Mitt Romney venture. n/t

[ACTION BASTARD]

16. Meh. I can't recall the last time I stepped into one this year.

Yeah, I got nothing for them.