Brick and mortar retailers have been going through a death-by-a-thousand-papercuts for at least the last 5 years and 2020 is no exception. Besides the competition of online retailers, especially from the Amazon death star, these companies now must deal with a never-ending pandemic, stifling their shoppers but still having to pay rent, employees, and vendors.
Who knew, but online-only retailers were made for pandemics. So, this should come as no surprise that there have been at least 21 major retailers that have filed for bankruptcy protection this year. By the way, last year there were a total of 19 that filed. That is a lot, but we could see almost twice that many by the end of 2020.
Here is a current list of major retailers that filed for bankruptcy in 2020:
Select a retailer to learn more about their bankruptcy.
| RTW Retailwinds (July 13)
Muji USA (July 10) Sur La Table (July 8) Brooks Brothers (July 8) G-Star Raw (July 3) Lucky Brand (July 3) GNC (June 23) Tuesday Morning (May 27) Centric Brands (May 18) J.C. Penney (May 15) Stage Stores (May 11)
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Aldo (May 7)
Neiman Marcus (May 7) J. Crew (May 4) Roots USA (April 29) True Religion (April 13) Modell’s Sporting Goods (March 11) Art Van Furniture (March 9) Bluestem Brands (March 9) Pier 1 (Feb. 17) SFP Franchise Corp (Jan. 23)
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There is a website that keeps a running list of retail bankruptcies if you want to learn more about them:
https://www.retaildive.com/news/the-running-list-of-2020-retail-bankruptcies/571159/
The takeaway from an investing point of view is to steer clear of brick and mortar retail companies until there is some kind of light at the end of the Covid tunnel.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Joe Baker, CFP®
Baker Asset Management, LLC
joebaker@bakerassetmanagement.com
