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At Home, the big-box home decor and furnishings brand, is the most recent in a series of home goods stores, including Big Lots and True Value, to file for bankruptcy in recent months. Today, the company announced that it is seeking Chapter 11 protection after tariff-related costs, inflation, and reduced foot traffic have taken a bite out of sales. The company, which is owned by Hellman & Friedman and operates 260 stores across the U.S., has entered an agreement with its lenders thats intended to help eliminate the companys $2 billion in debt while providing $200 million in new funding to keep the brand afloat during the restructuring process. CEO Brad Weston said in a press release that At Home is operating against a rapidly evolving trade environment as we navigate the impact of tariffs and that the changes are intended to help the company compete in a more volatile marketplace. At Homes financial woes come on the back of closures for several similar brands. In 2024, the discount retailer Big Lots also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and planned to close all of its 800 locations before it was ultimately purchased and kept afloat by a new owner (though at a much smaller scale). And this May, the beloved arts-and-crafts retailer Joanns closed its doors permanently after a drawn-out bankruptcy process. Now, At Home will be the latest home goods retailer to attempt to keep its doors open as it navigates the bankruptcy process. 26 stores expected to close Currently, At Home employs over 7,000 workers across 40 states. According to a bankruptcy court filing, the brand has struggled over the past several years due to reduced foot traffic in stores, heightened competition from comparable and off-price retailers offering substantial discounts, and a disparity between inventory and customer demand. Over the last year, At Home has already closed six stores, but it reports that several remaining stores are still operating at suboptimal performance levels. To turn things around, At Home reported that it will begin by transitioning ownership of the company to its lenders, who are shouldering more than 95% of its debt. The restructuring is also expected to result in several store closures. Per the filing: Ultimately, the Debtors management team and advisors determined that it is appropriate to commence closings of 26 underperforming brick-and-mortar stores, with the potential to close additional underperforming stores in the future. The 26 stores are expected to be sold and vacated by September 30, 2025. Here are the stores that are expected to close: 750 Newhall Dr., San Jose, CA 2505 El Camino Real, Tustin, CA 2200 Harbor Blvd., Costa Mesa, CA 3795 E Foothills Blvd., Pasadena, CA 1982 E 20th St., Chico, CA 26532 Towne Center Dr., Suites A-B, Foothill Ranch, CA 2900 N. Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, CA 8320 Delta Shores Circle S., Sacramento, CA 14585 Biscayne Blvd., North Miami, FL 5203 W. War Memorial Dr., Peoria, IL 13180 S. Cicero Ave., Crestwood, IL 300 Providence Highway, Dedham, MA 571 Boston Turnpike, Shrewsbury, MA 2820 Hwy. 63, South Rochester, MN 905 S 24th St. W., Billings, MT 1361 NJ-35, Middletown Township, NJ 461 Route 10, East Ledgewood, NJ 301 Nassau Park Blvd., Princeton, NJ 6135 Junction Blvd., Rego Park, NY 300 Baychester Ave., Bronx, NY 720 Clairton Blvd., Pittsburgh, PA 8300 Sudley Rd., Manassas, VA 19460 Compass Creek Pkwy., Leesburg, VA 1001 E Sunset Dr., Bellingham, WA 2530 Rudkin Rd., Yakima, WA 3201 North Mayfair Rd., Wauwatosa, WI
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E-Commerce
Francois-Henri Pinault, the billionaire heir who has headed up the French fashion house Kering Group for the past 20 years, has picked the CEO of automaker Renault to be his successor. The stock markets reaction? Thats gucci. Shares of Kering jumped Monday after reports trickled out beginning Sunday that Kering planned to tap Luca de Meo as its new CEO. The stock closed 13.5% higher. The Paris-based company confirmed the news in a statement on Monday, indicating that de Meo will take the helm of the struggling fashion house as it enters a new phase of development. Pinault will stay on as chairman of the board of directors after de Meo takes the helm in September. Pinault said in the statement that he first met de Meo a couple years ago when he launched a reflection on the evolution of the companys governance. His experience at the helm of an international listed group, his sharp understanding of brands, and his sense of a strong and respectful corporate culture convinced me that he is the leader I was looking for to bring a new vision and steer this chapter in our Group’s history. The big jump in Kering shares suggests investors are at least hopeful about Kerings future, and Bernstein analysts noted that brand management and marketing are de Meos forte, as reported by CNBC. Kering shares have fallen more than 72% in the past four years as the company has struggled to convince customersand investorsof its appeal. Gucci’s Struggles Much of Kering’s problem rests with Gucci, the groups biggest brand by far, accounting for 44% of revenue in 2024. Gucci has been dragging down the rest of the company: In the first quarter, Guccis sales fell 25%, while Kerings fell 14%. Gucci has fallen out of fashion among consumers, and particularly in China and the broader Asia-Pacific region. The brand closed two stores in Shanghai earlier this year, while other brands have gained traction among consumers thereand elsewhere. Attempts to breathe some new life into the brandsuch as the March announcement of Demna as Guccis new creative director following a decade-long stint at Balenciagadidnt assuage investors. And consumers looking for a handbag thats nostalgic to Guccis golden years might find a more attractive option in an independent collection of handbags by Alexandra Gucci Zarini, an heir to the Gucci family, While de Meo had a successful tenure at Renaultduring which time the stock jumped nearly 90%he faces a difficult road in his new role. De Meo has a titanic challenge ahead of him, Luca Solca, analyst at Bernstein, told The Wall Street Journal.
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E-Commerce
Eleven years after purchasing WhatsApp, Meta is going full throttle with its plans to monetize the communication platform. And while officials at the social media giant say users privacy will still be protected, some experts are urging caution. The social media giant announced on Monday it will over the next few months bring advertisements to WhatsApp, a radical shift for an app whose founders deliberately chose not to include advertising (or games or anything else that was popular amongst app makers at the time).The ads will appear just in one segment of the app, called Updates. That’s used by about 1.5 billion people per day, roughly half of the app’s total monthly users. Ads will not be a part of WhatsApp’s chat feature with friends. Meta said it will collect some data from users to help with targeting the ads. This includes location and language. The company said it will not collect any information from messages or calls. “Like everything else on WhatsApp, weve built these features in the most privacy-oriented way possible,” the company wrote in the Monday blog post. “Your personal messages, calls and statuses remain end-to-end encrypted, meaning no one can see or hear them. That includes Meta.” But the revamped ad policy raises some red flags, especially given Meta’s spotty historical record when it comes to privacy. “The fact that Meta has promised that it’s adding ads to WhatsApp with privacy in mind does not make me trust this new feature,” says Lena Cohen, a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). “Ads that are targeted based on your personal data are a privacy nightmare, no matter what app they’re on.” Concerns about WhatsApps privacy practices arent new. Just over a year ago, Elon Musk criticized the platform, writing on X that it “exports your user data every night.” (Metas Will Cathcart, who runs WhatsApp, denied that in a reply, writing: Many have said this already, but worth repeating: this is not correct. We take security seriously and that’s why we end-to-end encrypt your messages. They don’t get sent to us every night or exported to us.) Meanwhile, Meta continues to face broader scrutiny over its handling of personal information, including a pending lawsuit stemming from the 2016 Cambridge Analytica scandal and a recent $1.4 billion settlement over its unauthorized collection of biometric information. WhatsApps co-founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton have never been shy to express their distaste for the advertising industry. That caused strife after WhatsApp was bought by Meta and in 2018, the two founders left the company, using an escape hatch in their contracts after a reported series of clashes with executives. (Doing so cost Acton $900 million and Koum $400 million, as they departed before they were eligible for stock rewards.) Acton, at the time, expressed regrets for selling the app, saying “At the end of the day, I sold my company. I sold my users privacy to a larger benefit. I made a choice and a compromise. I live with that every day.” Meta, though, has pledged not to put ads within WhatsApp chats. In November 2023, Cathcart said Meta “won’t put ads in your inbox,” a vow he has been able to keep, in large part because of the popularity of the Updates tab. Perhaps anticipating the concerns Monday’s announcement might stir up, Meta launched an ad campaign three weeks ago that reinforced the privacy of personal messages. While there are no estimates about how much Meta will be able to grow its ad revenue with WhatsApp advertisements, it’s a number that’s likely to increase in coming years. (In 2024, for perspective, Meta’s ad revenue reached $162.4 billion company wide.) Despite that, the EFFs Cohen says users who are concerned about the privacy implications of this move are right to be on their guard. While she said the promises the company made in announcing the addition of ads were encouraging, they weren’t sufficient to completely ensure user data would remain confidential. Cohen warns that even though Meta claims it wont use personally identifiable data, the information it does collect can still be used to re-identify usersespecially when combined from other data combed from the web. “I would definitely recommend that people do not add WhatsApp to their Meta account center, she says. That will allow Meta to broadcast even more of your personal information to potential advertisers. And that data wouldn’t just include info that meta gets from you on its own platforms; it would include information it gets from tracking you across the web.”
Category:
E-Commerce
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