Joann, the fabrics and crafts retailer that has supplied quilters, seamstresses and school projects for 80 years, announced that it would close down all of its stores in the latest chapter of financial tumult for the company.
The company’s assets were auctioned off on Friday, about a month after Joann filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time in less than a year. Joann announced earlier in February that it would close 500 of its remaining 800 stores as part of the bankruptcy process.
The winning bidder in the auction, the financial services company GA Group, along with a lender, acquired “substantially all of JOANN’s assets,” according to a news release from Joann. GA Group plans to wind down the company’s operations and conduct going-out-of-business sales at all stores, pending bankruptcy court approval, the company said.
Joann said in a statement that its leadership “made every possible effort to pursue a more favorable outcome that would keep the company in business.”
Joann, which was previously called Jo-Ann Fabrics, is based in Hudson, Ohio. The chain’s storefronts in 49 states have long been a standby for creative crafters, offering a plethora of colorful yarns and fabric rolls that filled entire aisles, as well as sewing machines, seasonal products and other crafting supplies.
In March 2024, Joann, then a publicly traded company, filed for bankruptcy to reduce debt and returned to private ownership. The company attributed its low sales to a challenging retail environment. That initial filing closed in August 2024.
The retailer continued its downward spiral in the months that followed. When the company announced earlier in February that it would close more than half its stores, Joann said in a statement that it faced “significant and lasting challenges in the retail environment, which, coupled with our current financial position and constrained inventory levels, have forced us to take this step.”
The timeline for store closures and the winding down of operations was not yet clear, though Joann said the closing sales would begin immediately. Joann said in a note to suppliers that it had “generally stopped purchasing goods and services except for those that it believes are essential to supporting an orderly wind-down of operations.” GA Group did not immediately respond to a request for more information on Monday.
Many at-home crafters, like Stacey Brumfield, 38, of Alexandria, La., were saddened by the news of the closures. Ms. Brumfield has been shopping at her local Joann for almost a decade, because the store is the only one nearby that carries the yarn she needs for her knitting and crocheting projects.
“Whatever you needed, they probably had it, and it was going to be the quality you wanted,” she said, adding that finding the products she usually bought there was going to be “a lot more difficult.”
Content Source: www.nytimes.com