A 134-Year-Old American Furniture Chain Closing Down All 553 Stores

Furniture retailer Conn’s filed for bankruptcy and is shutting down outlets nationwide after experiencing a slowdown in recent years that negatively affected the firm’s sales and liquidity.
The Chapter 11 bankruptcy was filed on July 23 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. Founded in 1890, Conn’s operates 553 retail stores across the country that will be closed as part of the bankruptcy proceedings. The company has started running store closing sales at some of its locations and requested the court to allow it to continue with these sales.
The bankruptcy filings were made after the company’s growth faced “significant headwinds” in recent years, CEO Norman J. Miller said in another court filing. These challenges include “drastic shifts” in consumer behavior, interest rate pressures, inflation, and integration delays and increased costs associated with the firm’s merger during 2023–24, he stated….