Circuit City announced today that their bankruptcy is for real. They are going to close all 567 stores, lay off their 30,000 staff and liquidate everything. All efforts to find a buyer to rescue them failed.Their website is now offline, existing only to inform people they have closed.
They will honor gift cards only during the liquidation sale, after that they will have no value.
It's a harsh lesson for any major retailer that thinks they can be number two in this country. Best Buy has clearly been kicking their ass for a long time. It's amazing Circuit City survived as long as they did.
What I cannot understand is why there are still people out there with a Bush Cheney bumper sticker on their cars. With all this carnage going on in America, it is pretty clear what the worst president in our history has accomplished. How anyone with a triple digit IQ can look at the state of our nation and feel that the past eight years was anything other than a catastrophic failure, I have no idea.
2 comments:
It's not even about being number 2
Circuit City invested it's cash in mortgage back securities.
On paper they had a great balance sheet up until about May 2007 when they disclosed what their "cash" consisted of.
Well I am no expert on how these things go down.
But like K-Mart vs. Walmart and CVS vs. Walgreens, Circuit City always seemed to be second best to me.
Their stores were dull and ugly. They did not have the vibrant clean feel of a Best Buy.
A little while ago they laid off all their management only to re-hire them for less pay. Doing stuff like that alienates customers (I boycotted the store after that), and ensures that quality staff leave, and losers who can't do better stay.
Frankly I think this company was mismanaged. Whether it was poor investments as you suggest, or crappy looking stores and bad treatment of staff.
In any case they are no more. And while I am sad for the staff who must now suffer, I won't miss the chain or their corporate identity.
Sadly, I'm sure the board looted the place before they filed bankruptcy. I'd be amazed if they didn't all take a nice golden handshake with a financial happy ending.
Post a Comment