Toys R Us might be resurrected, after its mass store closure earlier this year.
The toy retailer’s lenders have canceled its bankruptcy auction and intend to revive the business behind the iconic toy seller’s brands, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The lenders are the same group of hedge funds that canceled the Toys R Us reorganization earlier this year.
The lenders envision “a new, operating Toys R Us and Babies R Us branding company that maintains existing global license agreements and can invest in and create new, domestic, retail operating businesses” under the brand name, according to court papers filed Monday and cited by the Journal.
The hedge fund group said it received qualified bids for the toy retailer’s assets, which include the Toys R Us and Babies R Us brands its registry lists, website domains and even the Toys R Us mascot, Geoffrey the Giraffe. But the lenders determined that the bids didn’t “yield a superior alternative to the plan,” and that stakeholders would see a greater benefit in maintaining the brands “under a newly established, independent US business,” the Journal reported.
Six months after filing for bankruptcy protection in the US, and one month after a similar collapse in the UK, Toys R Us announced in March its intention to shut down each of its nearly 900 stores in both the US and UK.
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