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Elder-Beerman Parent Company To Liquidate, All Stores Set To Close

Nicholas Eckhart
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Flickr Creative Commons

Elder-Beerman executives have announced the company is going out of business, impacting hundreds of jobs in the Miami Valley.

A bankruptcy court hearing to approve the sale and wind-down of parent company Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. operations is scheduled for April 18, 2018. If the court approves the deal, a joint venture will acquire the inventory and certain other assets of the company. The Dayton Daily News reports all locations of the Midwest-based department store could close within 10 to 12 weeks. 

In a statement to WYSO, company officials say the stores, e-commerce and mobile platforms will remain open throughout the planned store-closing sales. Bon-Ton officials are expected to release more details about store liquidation plans and going-out-of-business sales following approval by the bankruptcy Court.

Credit Nicholas Eckhart / Flickr Creative Commons
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Flickr Creative Commons

Bon-Ton filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. Yesterday, Great American Group and Tiger Capital Group jointly bid $775.5 million for the retailer and intend to liquidate all of its assets. The company, which also operates department stores Herberger’s and Younkers, has not turned a profit since 2010.

“While we are disappointed by this outcome and tried very hard to identify bidders interested in operating the business as a going concern, we are committed to working constructively with the winning bidder to ensure an orderly wind-down of operations that minimizes the impact of this development on our associates, customers, vendors and the communities we serve. We are incredibly grateful to all of our associates for their dedicated service to Bon-Ton and to our millions of loyal customers who we have had the pleasure to serve as their hometown store for more than 160 years,” Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. company President and CEO Bill Tracy, said in a statement.

Company officials did not provide additional information on any employee-separation or assistance offers.

There are currently seven Elder-Beerman stores in the Miami Valley. The company also operates a distribution plant in Fairborn. Stores in Springfield and Middletown closed in 2013 and 2017, respectively.

The company was established in Dayton in 1883 as the Boston Dry Goods Store. The brand became Elder-Beerman in 1962.

Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. is headquartered in York, Pennsylvania and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and operates 250 stores in more than two dozen states in the Northeast, Midwest and upper Great Plains under the Bon-Ton, Bergner’s, Boston Store, Carson’s, Elder-Beerman, Herberger’s and Younkers nameplates.

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April Laissle is a graduate of Ohio University and comes to WYSO from WOUB Public Media in Athens, Ohio where she worked as a weekend host and reporter. There, she reported on everything from food insecurity to 4-H chicken competitions. April interned at KQED Public Radio in San Francisco, where she focused on health reporting. She also worked on The Broad Experience, a New-York based podcast about women and workplace issues. In her spare time, April loves traveling, trying new recipes and binge-listening to podcasts. April is a Florida native and has been adjusting to Ohio weather since 2011.
Jess Mador comes to WYSO from Knoxville NPR-station WUOT, where she created an interactive multimedia health storytelling project called TruckBeat, one of 15 projects around the country participating in AIR's Localore: #Finding Americainitiative. Before TruckBeat, Jess was an independent public radio journalist based in Minneapolis. She’s also worked as a staff reporter and producer at Minnesota Public Radio in the Twin Cities, and produced audio, video and web stories for a variety of other news outlets, including NPR News, APM, and PBS television stations. She has a Master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York. She loves making documentaries and telling stories at the intersection of journalism, digital and social media.