On Friday, after a 29-hour auction, most of the bankrupt Albany, N.
Y.-based retailer Trans World Entertainment by a mere $500,000.
According to Tower attorney Peter Gurfein, Great American Saturday.
An internal e-mail to employees from Tower CEO Joseph D'Amico said the company's Web operation, Tower.com, its label separately.
D'Amico -- a bankruptcy specialist who succeeded outgoing CEO Allen Rodriguez in July -- said in his message, "My heart into this great company.
"
The sale sounded a bitter final bar for Tower, which operated 89 U.S. stores.
Once the dominant music retailer in the country, the 46-year-old company attracted consumers to its catalog in a breadth of musical categories. Its store on Hollywood's Sunset Strip was a legendary music-biz hangout. But competition from big-box merchants, the growth of Internet sales, piracy and some ill-advised international expansion eroded sales.
The disappearance of Tower's familiar red-and-yellow logo 20 Virgin Megastores, now will become the most prominent accounted for 40%-50% of some niche-genre labels' business.
The largest surviving specialty retailers, including Trans World and Amarillo, Texas-based Hastings Books, Music Video, are predominantly mall-based, hit-driven operations with a highly diversified product mix.
The sell-off of Tower's inventory, valuations of which run as high as $200 million, could have a wide-ranging impact on the music business at large.
The company's West Sacramento, Calif., warehouse is filled with product from the vendors of its independent distribution company, Bayside Distribution, and its accessories suppliers. Companies with a high degree of returned for full wholesale cost.
The court-supervised auction of Tower climaxed two months of drama, which began in early August when word surfaced that the chain after it was unable to pay its bills. Estimates of Tower's total debt ran as high as $200 million. The troubled protection -- had been on the sales block, but a sale to a during the summer.
On August 21, Tower filed a second petition for Chapter 11 protection. Tower asked the court for a prompt sale of its critical fourth-quarter holiday sales season.
Sixteen companies -- ranging from Trans World (which had bid of $90 million.
Many had hoped that Chicago-based Radius Equity -- a "white and running on a stand-alone basis -- would win the bidding, in time for the auction.
The family of Russ Solomon, who founded Tower in 1960 as a music department in his father's Sacramento pharmacy, remained a 15% shareholder. Solomon did not enter a bid for the company.
In an e-mail circulated Friday to Tower's staff, Solomon said, "The fat lady has sung ...
she was way off key. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You."
On Friday, hours before the Great American acquisition was announced, Tower employees held a barbecue at the West Sacramento headquarters.
More than one source described it as "a wake."
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
News RSS