The Wet Seal LLC has filed a Chapter 11 petition for bankruptcy court protection in Delaware.
The voluntary petition was filed Wednesday. The latest filing is its second tour of bankruptcy proceedings. The last filing was in January 2015. The difference is that this time around the speciality chain is in the process of closing all stores. The petition will help the company wind down its operations in an orderly process.
In the filing, the company listed estimated assets at between $10 million to $50 million and estimates liabilities at between $50 million to $100 million.
Among the top five unsecured creditors are: FedEx Corp., Memphis, Tenn., trade claim, $608,977; Celebrity Pink, Montebello, Calif., trade claim, $302,098; GF Holding Inc., Los Angeles, Calif., trade claim, $225,573; Google Inc., Mountain View, Calif., trade claim, $195,919, and L+L Printers Carlsbad LLC, Carlsbad, Calif., trade claim, $169,967.
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The company last month said it decided to shutter the stores after being unable to find a strategic partner or obtain additional capital to continue operations.
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Versa Capital is the private equity firm that acquired Wet Seal out of bankruptcy.
The fate of Wet Seal follows on the heels of the shuttering of The Limited as well as the expected shuttering of American Apparel‘s stores. Last year, Sports Authority closed all of its stores. All are indications of the changing landscape of American retailing, and of how overstored the U.S. has been for the last two decades.
It was unclear when all the inventory at the stores — now selling for 20 percent off — would be cleared, but a letter to the state Employment Development Department in California last month about shedding 148 jobs at company headquarters in Irvine said those workers would be let go by March 21. The company has 171 locations across 42 states.