Short Pump-Based S&K Announces Plans To Liquidate Stores
May 20, 2009 - 1:29 pm
By Trevor Dickerson
S&K Famous Brands, headquartered in Short Pump, announced plans just after 1:00 p.m. today to liquidate assets and close all 105 of its remaining stores nationwide. Sales are expected to begin tomorrow. S&K filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy back in February, listing assets at the time of $41,440,100 and debts of $35,499,000.
The company used the bankruptcy filing to try and get out of leases of under-performing stores in their portfolio, including one at Virginia Center Commons.
In another attempt at raising cash, the company also sold its Short Pump headquarters on Broad at I-64. TGM Realty Investors, a subsidiary of local company Thalhimer Commercial Real Estate, purchased the corporate offices, attached 110,000 square foot warehouse and adjacent S&K retail store for $5.6 million.
Financed in part by the sale of the headquarters, S&K paid off a $13 million line of credit given to them by the US bankruptcy court in downtown Richmond as part of their filing. The Times-Dispatch reports that S&K only used around $7 million of the credit line to reorganize its operations.
S&K was started in Richmond in 1967 by Abe Kaminsky and Hip Siegel. The company had 100 stores in 1990 and 200 stores in 1997.
That’s a shame. They were SO close to surviving, too.