Judge to rule on Joann's future as Gulf Coast stores will likely shutter

Fabric and craft retailer Joann is likely to see all of its stores in Florida and across the country close after a company specializing in the liquidation of assets and a group of the bankrupt company’s lenders were the winning bidders in an auction.

The sale must still be approved by federal bankruptcy judge Craig T. Goldblatt at a hearing is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in Delaware.

But in a statement posted on the 80-year-old retailer’s website this week, the company seems to have come to terms with it’s likely future, saying “We are committed to working constructively with the winning bidder to ensure an orderly wind-down of operations that minimizes the negative impact on all Joann team members, vendors, customers and communities.”

Going-out-of-business sales will begin at all the locations immediately after the judge’s ruling.

The liquidation company is the GA Group and the winning bid amount was not immediately disclosed

Joann, founded in Cleveland, Ohio in 1943, has more than 800 stores and four distribution centers in 49 states. Of those, 16 are along the Gulf Coast, stretching from Pasco County south to Collier County and east to Polk County.

News of the possible liquidation comes days after Joann’s announced in early February that it was shuttering 500 stores nationwide including 11 across the region.

(Liquidation sales are underway at the stores that were previously announced as closing.)

GA, according to a profile of the company on Bloomberg’s website, is a part of the Los Angeles-based investment firm Oaktree Capital Management. It beat out stalking horse bidder Gordon Bros., which is handling the sale of Big Lot stores, for the right to liquidate the Joann stores.

Joann filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time in less than year Jan. 15.

The first bankruptcy was in March 2024, where it exited as a private company.

But it was unable to survive despite a restructuring plan meant “to manage costs and drive values,” Michael Prendergast, Joann’s interim CEO, said in a January statement announcing the latest bankruptcy.

The “last several years have presented significant and lasting challenges in the retail environment, which, coupled with our current financial position and constrained inventory levels, forced us to take this step,” Prendergast said. “After carefully reviewing all available strategic paths, we have determined that initiating a court supervised sale process is the best course of action to maximize the value of the business.”

By filing for bankruptcy twice, Joann became the latest company to join the Chapter 22 club.

That is the nickname given to businesses that emerge from bankruptcy only to wind up back in court at a later time. Among the Chapter 22 companies are the once ubiquitous retailers RadioShack, Payless Shoes, Tuesday Morning and Kmart.