The End of an Era: Bed Bath & Beyond Files for Bankruptcy

The once mighty home goods retail­er Bed Bath & Beyond announced today that it has filed for Chap­ter 11 bank­rupt­cy, mark­ing the end of near­ly 50 years in business.

Accord­ing to a state­ment released by the com­pa­ny, Bed Bath & Beyond will begin an “order­ly liq­ui­da­tion” of its assets. The com­pa­ny’s remain­ing stores, includ­ing 360 Bed Bath & Beyond loca­tions, 120 Buy Buy Baby stores, and all web­sites will remain open to serve cus­tomers dur­ing the bank­rupt­cy proceedings.

The New Jer­sey-based com­pa­ny has faced sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial trou­bles in recent years due to declin­ing sales, strate­gic mis­steps, and three CEO changes since 2019. The lat­est CEO, activist investor Ryan Cohen, sold his entire stake in the com­pa­ny just five months after join­ing, deal­ing a major blow to Bed Bath & Beyond’s stock price and viability.

“They had a very spe­cif­ic prob­lem and they were mak­ing real­ly bad strate­gic mis­takes,” said Neil Saun­ders, man­ag­ing direc­tor of Glob­al­Da­ta Retail. “Ulti­mate­ly, years of inter­nal trou­bles com­bined with finan­cial head­winds made fil­ing for bank­rupt­cy seem inevitable.”

Found­ed in 1971, Bed Bath & Beyond grew into a retail pow­er­house over near­ly 50 years in busi­ness. How­ev­er, the com­pa­ny strug­gled to keep up with the rise of e‑commerce and nim­bler com­peti­tors in recent years. After a failed turn­around effort and dwin­dling options to raise cap­i­tal, the once icon­ic brand was left with no choice but to file for bankruptcy.

Bed Bath & Beyond has secured $240 mil­lion in financ­ing to con­tin­ue lim­it­ed oper­a­tions dur­ing the bank­rupt­cy process. The com­pa­ny will now embark on an effort to sell off its remain­ing assets and close unprof­itable stores. The bank­rupt­cy fil­ing marks the end of an era for a sta­ple of Amer­i­can retail that spanned generations.