November 13, 2024
Following up on the November 3 bankruptcy filing of Franchise Group, parent of Pet Supplies Plus (762 stores), The Vitamin Shoppe (694 stores), Buddy's (336 stores), and American Freight (336 stores), the Court granted authorization for the Debtors to initiate store closing sales at 329 American Freight units by year end. The adjacent map shows where American Freight stores are located across the U.S. The chain's highest concentration of stores are in Texas (10%), Florida (9%), and Ohio (8%).
Conn's received Court authorization to sell substantially all of its intellectual assets to debt collection agency Jefferson Capital Systems, LLC, the stalking horse bidder, for $342.7 million. This follows last month's auction of 24 rejected leases, of which 15 were picked up by Burlington Stores; so far 61 leases have been auctioned. Going out of business sales were conducted at all of the Company's 310 dealer owner stores between July and October. Meanwhile, Conn's filed a motion to reject 16 unexpired leases (see adjacent map for these locations), bringing the total rejected leases to 67.
Express received Court approval to reject 17 unexpired leases. Since filing for bankruptcy protection in April 2024, the Company has sold most of its tangible and intangible property to The Phoenix JV, including 450 stores. It has also closed 114 stores. A hearing has been scheduled for December 18 to consider confirmation of its Chapter 11 Plan.
First Watch will acquire 15 of its franchised restaurants and another restaurant currently under construction in North Carolina and South Carolina for $49 million. The acquisition also includes development rights for the two states. The deal is expected to close by mid-April 2025, subject to customary closing conditions. Not including these locations, First Watch has acquired 45 franchised restaurants through six transactions since May 2023. As of 3Q24 ended September 29, 2024, the Company operated 466 restaurants while franchisees operated 81 restaurants.
According to our Retail Openings & Closings tracker, First Watch has 39 stores in the pipeline, including nine openings due by year end.
Sprouts Farmers Market plans to open a new store in Cheyenne, WY, representing its 24th state. This is the first new state in the last two years. As of October 30, the Company has opened 21 of its planned 33 stores for 2024, adding to the 30 opened in 2023. See our Retail Openings & Closings map on the right for Sprouts' future openings in the pipeline. About a dozen stores of the 60 on the map are due to open by year end.
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