JC Penny is the latest American retailer to file bankruptcy amid coronavirus pandemic.
The 118- year old retailer said it was filing for Chapter 11, a mechanism which allows a company that can no longer pay its debts to restructure. The company hasn’t been able to turn in profit since 2011 and was been struggling due to bad decisions, damaging market trends and instability.
The company blamed the coronavirus pandemic for the need to file bankruptcy. CEO Jill Soltau said in a statement: “Until this pandemic struck, we had made significant progress rebuilding our company under our Plan for Renewal strategy — and our efforts had already begun to pay off. Implementing this financial restructuring plan through a court-supervised process is the best path to ensure that JCPenney will build on its over 100-year history to serve our customers for decades to come.”
Apart from JCPenny, four other American retailers filed for the bankruptcy this month. On May 4. J.C. Crew filed for bankruptcy, followed by Neiman Marcus on May 7 and Stage Stores (SSI) on May 10.
