Closing all stores: Christmas Tree Shops to liquidate

Christmas Tree Shops has defaulted on a loan that funds its bankruptcy and is now being forced to liquidate.

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The company filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year and had planned to close a few stores to exit Chapter 11 by August through a restructuring plan that kept the current ownership in place, The Wall Street Journal reported.

As part of the plan, the home goods discount chain took an about $45 million bankruptcy loan that included about $20 million in capital, but the loan was ended when the company defaulted, according to a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court late last week.

The filing means that the approximately 70 remaining Christmas Tree Shops will be liquidated unless a buyer steps forward in the coming days, the Journal reported.

A lawyer for the stores said Christmas Tree Shops had issues about a month ago when sales declined due to a lack of inventory that impacted their bottom line.

Christmas Tree Shops started in 1970 in Yarmouth Port on Cape Cod before it expanded nationwide, WFXT reported.

It had been owned by now-defunct Bed Bath and Beyond from 2003 to 2020 before the holiday-named store was sold to Handil Holdings, according to WFXT.

There are five Christmas Tree Shops locations in Florida, including one in Altamonte Springs. You can see a map of the Central Florida location below: