Guitar Center Files for Bankruptcy

The company said it expected to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of the year.

“This is an important and positive step in our process to significantly reduce our debt and enhance our ability to reinvest in our business to support long-term growth,” Guitar Center’s chief executive, Ron Japinga, said in a statement.

Guitar Center’s bankruptcy is the latest example of how the coronavirus pandemic has divided American retail into two groups, with a growing gap between the strongest and weakest companies. Although many people turned to hobbies like playing music while homebound, the beneficiaries of that surge in demand have primarily been businesses with strong e-commerce infrastructure.

Even before the pandemic, Guitar Center’s business was threatened by online rivals like the website Sweetwater, and the company was heavily indebted as a result of a private-equity led buyout years earlier. Still, it said in a court filing, it had had 10 consecutive quarters of sales growth through the end of February. But, it said, the pandemic “wiped out much” of that progress. It missed an interest payment of roughly $45 million last month, putting it on the path to a bankruptcy filing, The New York Times previously reported.

Guitar Center had to close many of its stores across the country, with 75 percent of its stores shuttered at one point. The retailer later said that online sales blossomed during the pandemic, but what proportion of its business those sales made up is unclear.

It said in the court filing that its “significant debt burden and upcoming maturities, coupled with the economic upheaval created by the persistence of the Covid-19 pandemic, could not be resolved through short-term measures.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/business/dealbook/guitar-center-files-for-bankruptcy.html