Sixty-nine workers in Maine will have lost their jobs at Christmas Tree Shops since January, with the ailing discount home-goods retailer saying in June that it would liquidate all of its stores, according to WARNTracker.
The 82-store retailer, which has stores in Bangor, Augusta and South Portland, filed for bankruptcy protection in May. The Massachusetts-based retailer is now discounting merchandise to sell out inventory. The company’s chairman said lenders asked for stores to close before September, CBS News Boston reported.
It originally planned to close underperforming stores, restructure using a loan and emerge from Chapter 11 in August, but poor sales caused it to default on the loan, which creditors terminated, according to The Wall Street Journal.
WARNTracker also said Christmas Tree Shops filed notices in New Jersey between January and June disclosing a total of 2,124 layoffs.
It is the latest in a wave of retail bankruptcies across the country. Bed Bath & Beyond, which owned Christmas Tree Shops until 2021, closed all its stores earlier this year, including in Bangor, Augusta and South Portland.
