February 20, 2008

Sharper Image files for Chapter Eleven

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people. I remember back when they were good -- they sold hard-to-find tools for reasonable prices and their catalogs were an education. Gradually, they morphed into cheap plastic crap sold in malls. One of their 'flagship' products -- the Ionic Breeze air purifier got taken to task by Consumer Reports which called it useless; a lawsuit was filed and Consumer Reports was vindicated. Hat tip to BoingBoing for this link to the Reuters article:
Sharper Image files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Retailer Sharper Image Corp has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing declining sales, three straight years of losses and litigation involving its Ionic Breeze air purifiers.

The San Francisco-based company filed for protection late Tuesday in U.S. bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Delaware. Sharper Image said it had $251.5 million in assets and $199 million in debt as of January 31, according to the filing. Cash on hand totaled about $700,000.

Its shares plunged 92 cents, or 64 percent, to 52 cents on Nasdaq.

"Sharper Image is in a severe liquidity crisis," Chief Financial Officer Rebecca Roedell said in a separate filing.
I had blogged about the Ionic Breeze 'issue' quite a bit when it was happening. Read here, here, here and here. Same sort of thing has been happening to Brookstone to a lesser extent -- hope they manage to avoid the bad management that S.I. had been shackled with... Posted by DaveH at February 20, 2008 8:01 PM
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