Big Lots, Inc., a widely recognized dealer in discount retailing, announced Thursday it will begin going-out-of-business (GOB) sales at all of its stores nationwide, marking the end of its operations. This decision includes all retail stores in the valley including locations in Austintown, Boardman, Niles, Warren, and, Calcutta in Ohio as well as the other locations in Hermitage and New Castle in Pennsylvania.
The company also announced mass layoffs to 555 employees of their headquarters in Columbus starting from the 29th of December coinciding these plans with the Christmas holidays. Such assertion compliments a letter registered with the state for the Department of Jobs entitled The Worker Adjustment and Retraining notification (warn), which states that the layoffs taking off at the East Dublin Granville headquarters will end no later than April 2025.
This is due to their previous statement in which they had rejected Nexus Capital Management’s deal to buy them. Big Lots does not want such processes to jeopardize its decision to purchase an entirely new running business such as switching to GOB.
“We remain hopeful that we can close an alternative going-concern transaction,” said Bruce Thorn, President and CEO of Big Lots, in a statement. “However, to protect the value of the Big Lots estate, we have made the difficult decision to begin the going-out-of-business process.”
The going-concern principle, as defined by the Corporate Finance Institute, assumes an organization will continue its operations into the foreseeable future. Big Lots emphasized its commitment to finalizing a deal that might preserve the chain’s operations, ideally by early January 2024.
Meanwhile, the company will continue serving customers in-store and online as the court-supervised Chapter 11 bankruptcy process unfolds. Big Lots has reassured customers that its stores will remain open during the liquidation sales.
The closure of all stores represents a significant blow to the communities the retailer served, particularly in the Valley, where multiple locations will shutter. The bankruptcy and liquidation mark the end of an era for Big Lots, which has long been a staple in discount retail.
With the GOB sales set to commence “in the coming days,” shoppers are expected to flock to the stores for final bargains, even as employees face uncertainty about the future. The company’s bankruptcy journey continues, leaving open the possibility of a resolution that could retain some of its operations.
About The Author
