Report: Bed Bath & Beyond to sell Christmas Tree Shops, Cost Plus stores

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Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. wants to sell its Christmas Tree Shops and Cost Plus World Market chains, according to Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the matter.

A Bed Bath & Beyond spokesperson did not return a request for comment by press time.

Separately, Bed Bath laid off hundreds of employees, according to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN notices, in New Jersey and Florida.

The retailer will lay off 148 employees in Union where its headquarters is located, effective Aug. 22. In closing an operations site in Ocoee, Fla., the retailer will also lay off about 220 employees effective Aug. 22.

In February, Bed Bath announced it would cut 500 jobs, which is 10 percent of its workforce, amid restructuring.

The home goods chain has undergone myriad changes in the last year since activist investor pressure caused longtime chief executive Steven Temares to step down. Temares was replaced, after board member Mary Winston’s stint as interim chief executive offier, by former Target exec Mark Tritton, who shortly after arriving at Bed Bath ousted a half dozen executives from the C-suite and has been replacing them through 2020.

Before the executive switch up, the company announced last June that it would review its assets.

Bed Bath announced the sale of luxury home decor banner One Kings Lane in April, item personalization banner PersonalizationMall.com, and laid out a $1 billion fiscal turnaround plan for 2020 less than a month before the COVID-19 pandemic started to take its toll in New Jersey.

Bed Bath bought Christmas Tree Shops in 2003 and Cost Plus in 2012. Christmas Tree Shops operates 80 stores across the country, according to its website. Cost Plus operates about 260.

Bed Bath announced Monday it strengthened its liquidity and long-term financial position with a new $850 million asset-based credit facility, expiring in 2023, amid the “unparalleled challenge” of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“While the impact of the COVID-19 situation has been felt across our business, we have taken measured, purposeful steps to maintain our financial flexibility,” said Tritton in a prepared statement. “We ended our fiscal 2020 first quarter with approximately $1.2 billion in cash and investments, and we now have access to additional liquidity through our new ABL facility.”

Bed Bath also announced that approximately 95 percent of its store fleet should be open by the end of this week, and nearly all will be reopened by July 2020 subject to state and local regulations. Buy Online Pick Up In Store, or BOPIS services, and contactless curbside pickup will be expanded to cover the most stores.