Toy Co. CEO attempts Hail Mary for TRU, starts crowdfunding campaign - Sensationalist Headlines

Isaac Larian, the CEO of the company that makes Bratz dolls, has a plan to save Toys "R" Us. He and other investors have pledged a total of $200 million in financing and hope to raise four times that amount in crowdfunding in order to bid for up to 400 of the Toys "R" Us stores being liquidated in bankruptcy. The unsolicited bid still faces many hurdles, including finding other deep-pocked investors and getting a bankruptcy judge to agree to it. But this is the first public plan to keep the cherished toy brand in existence in the United States.Such a long-shot move would also greatly benefit Larian's primary business. He's CEO of Bratz doll-maker MGA Entertainment, which relies on Toys "R" Us for nearly 1 in every 5 sales. Bratz toy maker's CEO wants to salvage Toys "R" Us If you want to donate, here's the GoFundMe page. Shine on you crazy diamond.

Liquidation sales are NOT on according to Reddit.

https://twitter.com/RFutureGT/status/977192977373286405 https://twitter.com/KellyTyko/status/977188665859432449 Weird, maybe just some stores are doing it?

Basically Toy co. doesn't want one of the largest and only brick and mortar outlets that sell their toys to go under. Let see if this will pay off. Considering the rise of the online economy I don't suspect it will.

Am I seeing this right? They already raised 200 million dollars?

Was just at a Toys R Us earlier today, and according to the store I went to Nintendo Switch games and accessories will not be discounted during liquidation. I did get some nice deals on Amiibos though.

Sounds like that's from himself and other big investors, not through crowdfunding.

As long as Toys R Us prices actually become competitive and their online presense stops being hot garbage this could work. At that point though it's basically a new company.

They'd have to slash prices, even as a child I recognized that TRU were fucking scam artists.

It won't pay off. Not only are brick and mortar stores on the way out, but toys are too. Kids want a tablet they can throw netflix on to or play some shovelware apps. The vast majority aren't interested in barbie dolls or GI Joes anymore. It's cheaper and easier for a parent to buy a $99 garbo tablet for their kid and spend $5 a month on them buying new apps or videos. Toys R Us didn't provide anything for that. They were still pushing actual toys opposed to digital goods despite the market very clearly showing that kids don't care about toys anymore. RIP, and good fucking riddance. They have no interest in saving the company, they just want to take the money and run with it in typical crowdfunding fashion. They've already given their CEO 10s of millions of dollars in incentive bonuses even after filing for bankruptcy. They're going for one last heist before they're out the door.

big mistake not focusing on the online market. Especially around holidays nobody wants to go anywhere near retail stores if they don't have to.

My last place of employment, Gordmans, was going out of business and got bought out. We had those same kind of liquidation signs all over the damn store, and its gone now, but there's still stores elsewhere in America, and ours would've still existed (we were a hugely profitable store compared to a lot of the others) if the landlord wasn't a cock who tried to up the rent so much that it's been a year and nobody's moved into the storefront (that's in a very good, very busy location). I can see it being an effort to downsize, keeping only the most profitable stores open to keep the company going.

They've overtaken toys but toys are still played with quite a bit by kids. Main issue to me really is that dedicated large toy stores like this aren't really needed anymore. If you wanna buy physical walmart/target/etc. probably have what you want for cheaper, and if not there is of course amazon. I felt like they could have focused on smaller stores, with a high focus on events (e.g. what card game stores do) and maybe survived but they just threw on so much damn debt that nothing would have saved them.