So says the guy who continues to quote me with off topic posts....

TRU anyone?

 

You didn't have to reply as you put it in your other deleted post. You could've just "not answered."

 

Reading that infuriated me. They have every right to be furious over losing their livelihoods and careers.

Years back, my parents had to file bankruptcy due to their disability, thus inability to bring in more income, and it was devastating. My dad's never gotten over it. He hates it with a passion. My wife filed about 10 years ago and is just now rebuilding her credit, it's not an overnight process.

So, with that in mind, I have to wonder what the heck is going on here. This feels an awful lot like one giant scam to me. How much you want to bet all of those Party/Toy City stores will have leftover stock that they can't sell and TRU will swoop in and grab it for pennies on the dollar to help restock their "new" shelves when they reopen? (And they will reopen. I have a feeling this was all planned for quite a while.)

Something about this doesn't feel right. It shouldn't to anyone. Poor Charles Lazarus had to die watching his empire die with him, only to have someone kick-start the whole thing over again a few months later.

Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather be in a world that has Toys R Us than not, I have countless fond memories there, but this feels WRONG.

I can't be the only one here who feels this way...

 

Read my profile disclamer. I reply to my alerts. You seem to be following me all over the boards. Can I call you "Stan"?

 

I'm glad TRU is back in a somewhat different capacity, but man, I hate that freaking Giraffe. Looks like he's on acid with his big, bugged-out eyes.



They should have gone back to the Giraffe of the 80's and 90's.

 

It was a Giant Scam, three companies bought a successful Toys' R Us in 2005 in a leveraged buy out. They cut spending at the company upped the prices, borrowed all the money to buy the company in the the first place. Then borrowed more money in the company's name after they bought it. So it went overnight from a successful company with a balanced budget and a profit margin, to a company that That owed billions of dollars because of how much money they'd borrowed to buy the company. Then the internet market took off and any chance they had went down the tubes, they then spent the next ten years just barely able to make the payments on all the money they owed. Finally they couldn't keep up. Then they ran the last scam where everyone was fired, they closed all the stores, the executives all got bonuses, and they seem to have found away to avoid paying back most of the money owed back to the employees while selling the rest of the company's assets back to themselves and starting over.

They make out like bandits, their employee's all lose their jobs. And if you research who is behind those companies it will make you even angrier.(Also not the first company this group has done it to) Next they will offer the same employees their jobs back at reduced pay and less benefits without paying the money they owe them just watch.

 

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't offer the jobs back. A fresh, clean slate means less to pay to begin with. Create new drones and throw them to the wolves when they're done with them, too. We haven't heard anything else about that $20 million severance package they've been talking about cobbling together, it was overshadowed by the whole "Guess who's back, back again. SHADY'S back, tell a friend!" And shady is the perfect name for this.

It's disgusting how this is going down. So many people need to live, period, and they took away that possibility. I don't know if I can ever shop there again if they don't make things right. I'm not too worried about vendors, they'll find a way back to being flush, but the employees? *smh*

Lazarus would be angry, right now. Beyond belief.

 

They paid their lawyers 4 times the severance package. I think it was 135 to 150 million.

 

Since Im the black sheep of this forum, the Shepard Prime keeps following me. I seriously dont understand his rationale. But back on topic, TRU man, what a joke. Pop up shops? Really? Ive never even seen those things ? What are they in malls like build a bear stores?

 

Think those Halloween stores that open in empty locations every year

 

Reading these comments about anger about TRU's return, I think there's some confusion about who's making these decisions.

The TRU that was owned by Bain, etc., is gone. Bain and the others no longer own any portion of TRU. The IP was granted to a group of debtors who had helped finance TRU's debt, but those aren't Bain, etc. They're different entities.

These news guys are the ones who, apparently having decided that no one's offering enough cash for the TRU IP, are looking to rebuild the franchise from scratch (or, at least, from nothing but the IP).

If former employees want to be upset that those debtors now in control don't have more compassion, that's fine. But they're not the same folks who brought TRU to closure in the first place.

 

For what it's worth, I read that he is. If I stumble across the link again, I'll share it.

 

Didn't he just die?

 

That was my mistake. Yes, Charles Lazarus, founder of TRU, died roughly the same time as his store did.

I was temporarily confusing his name with Larian, the owner of the company that makes Bratz, who had put in an offer to save the US stores some time back, but whose offer was rejected by the debt owners as being too low. He's said something recently about refusing to support this new venture, ostensively on the grounds that it was unfair to the former employees of TRU.

 

I'm still trying to figure out where anyone is getting the idea that they're "opening" anything. This isn't even a pop-up store situation. This is the current TRU IP owners realizing they still own the rights to True Hero (and other TRU KO brands) and want to shove it into a already existing mall store with a sticker of Geoffrey's noggin slapped on it.

I mean, former employees can get mad at that I guess... I just don't understand why. It would be like Kroger shutting down and then getting upset as a former employee if I saw Big K being sold at Walmart.

 

Because they've clearly stated that their plan is to reopen physical stores down the road. Right now, it's Geoffrey's Toy Box LLC, but TRU itself will return and they'll own all of it aside from Canada. It's been in multiple news reports. When it's all said and done, they're trying to revive the brand without owing a dime. Which is crappy. And when they do finally reopen, there'll be no calls to the employees who got the shaft. I don't even know if they can pick up unemployment in some cases. (Each state and county handles it differently.)