Untitled attachment

Notices where this attachment appears

1. Embed this notice
   Dave Rahardja (drahardja@sfba.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Feb-2025 15:46:15 JST Dave Rahardja

   in reply to

   Another familiar #PrivateEquity story (please double check my claims):

   1. Publicly-traded Jo-Ann Fabrics was bought out by Private Equity firm Leonard Green & Partners in 2010, with close to ZERO DEBT (https://www.cleveland.com/business/2010/12/jo-ann_stores_going_private_in.html).

   2. Jo-Ann then went public again in 2021, now saddled with $930M in debt (https://www.forbes.com/sites/joanverdon/2021/02/16/stitch-pitch-fabric-and-crafts-retailer-joann-files-for-ipo/). In short, the private equity firm loaded them up with nearly A BILLION DOLLARS IN DEBT.

   3. Jo-Ann stocks steadily declined over the next few years.

   4. Jo-Ann declared bankruptcy in 2024, still with a $1B in debt on the books, and emerged as a private company, after restructuring their debt to $500M (https://apnews.com/article/joann-closing-bankruptcy-crafts-retail-b83c68fb641fad18cd6c8be925c6d90b).

   5. Jo-Ann announced they will close all stores in 2025 (https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/01/16/joann-fabrics-bankruptcy-closing/77748650007/).

   This sounds like the same playbook that took down Red Lobster: Take a company with no debt, saddle it with enormous amounts of debt (no doubt held by its new owners), bleed them dry by extracting significant interest on said debt, then shut everything down and liquidate.