Corporate greed and bad timing ruined Toys R Us, but was management seeking salvation or golden parachutes?
Greed is a powerful force and easily takes center stage over any morally correct course of action. Toys R Us took on a tremendous amount of debt, hoping market conditions would change in their favor to repay the loan.
Such conditions eroded any ability for the store to pay its debt or modernize it's stores or e-commerce operations. Under bankruptcy protection, millions of dollars went to retention bonuses as the toy giant shut it's doors. Greed prevailed. I don't believe saving Toys R Us was ever a consideration.
Corporate greed and bad timing ruined Toys R Us, but was management seeking salvation or golden parachutes?
The time between entering bankruptcy and final closing announcement was too short for any company of that size to restructure and begin recovery. I think the bankruptcy protection got TRU through the Christmas season and afforded millioins in retention bonuses before the entire chain was sold off.
When the liquidation sale came to fruition, the initial discount was up to 30%, but very few products were sold at this discount - most were 10%. This went on for two weeks before the discounts were raised. Still Toys R Us pricing was above Amazon pricing and TRU did so under liquidation sale. Crazy!
The parking lot at my local TRU was packed and the inventory was off the charts! Shwlves were stuffed tothe brim with toys and games. 'd nvers seen the store so full of product - ever. I even found some itmes I'd never seen in my store before. They were even carying the figures from the recently released Incredibles 2 movie. At a liquidation sale!?!
Who knows what went on in the back offices of upper management, but this whole scenario seems rife with corruption and greed. Toys R Us was likely on it's way out regardless, but the actoins within the bankruptcy time-frame seem sketchy. I don't feel much effort was made toward saving the toy giant. More energy seems to have gone into siphoning off as much money as possible before it's ultimate demise. Greed sucks!
