J.C. Penney lawyer says chain is going forward with sale, Retail News, ET Retail

J.C. Penney lawyer says chain is going forward with saleNEW YORK : An lawyer for J.C. Penney Co. instructed a personal bankruptcy choose Wednesday that the retailer is likely forward with a sale of its business and expects the deal to be done by the tumble.

The possible sale arrives as Plano, Texas-dependent Penney is seeking at a few bidders, which are seeking at purchasing the enterprise as a likely problem. The bidders were not recognized.

In the course of an tackle in personal bankruptcy court docket, Joshua Sussberg, an lawyer at Kirkland & Ellis, lambasted an article revealed before this 7 days by The New York Put up that reported a $one.seventy five billion bid by non-public fairness agency Sycamore Partners to purchase Penney and merge with a further having difficulties chain Belk Inc.. He called the report “sick-informed.”

“We are shifting forward with a sales system,” Sussberg explained. “We are hopeful.”

A spokesperson at Sycamore Partners declined to comment.

The 118-calendar year-outdated enterprise filed for Chapter eleven personal bankruptcy protection in mid-May well, marking the major retailer to buckle underneath the fiscal fallout from the coronavirus. Penney explained in mid-July that it plans to cut one,000 of its about 85,000 work opportunities as it tries to combat its way out of personal bankruptcy protection.

Penney explained very last month it had recognized 154 shops for closure in the very first stage of a restructuring to shrink its footprint. As part of its personal bankruptcy reorganization, J.C. Penney has explained it plans to forever close virtually a 3rd of its 846 shops in the subsequent two several years. That would go away it with just in excess of 600 areas.

Penney, which reopened its shops beginning in May well, explained that the areas off the shopping mall are faring much better than the kinds at shopping mall areas. But sales and consumer website traffic have come to be far more hard with the new COVID-19 resurgence in particular states.