Getty/ Mike Coppola
Around 1,100 jobs will be impacted.
- Stationary chain Papyrus filed for bankruptcy and confirmed it would close all of its stores across the US and Canada on Thursday.
- The company is owned by The Schurman Retail Group, which also operates sister stores Paper Destiny and American Greetings/Carlton Card. It has 254 stores in total.
- In the bankruptcy filing, it cited a period of overexpansion during the 2008 recession and a more recent "general downtown" in the brick and mortar retail industry as being some of the reasons behind its issues.
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The end is nigh for well-known stationary chain Papyrus.
On Thursday, its parent company, The Schurman Retail Group, which also owns sister stores Paper Destiny and American Greetings/Carlton Cards, filed for bankruptcy and said it would be closing all of its 254 stores across the US and Canada. Around 1,100 workers will be impacted by these closings.
Reports of its upcoming store closings surfaced earlier this month but news of its bankruptcy was first reported by Cleveland.com on Thursday.
Schurman Retail Group did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment but in a statement shared with Cleveland.com, a spokesperson said that the majority of stores would shutter in the next four to six weeks.
Schurman Retail Group was set up in 1950 as an importer and wholesaler of greetings cards and stationery in the US. Over the course of 20 years, it grew beyond the wholesale business to open its own locations; the first Papyrus store opened in 1973 in Berkeley, California.
At its peak in 2009, the company had 500 stores across the US and Canada after it entered into a deal with American Greetings Corp that led to it acquiring the retailer's stores across these two regions.
In the bankruptcy filing, it cited a period of overexpansion during the 2007-2009 recession and the fact that it was forced to refurbish and close a large number of underperforming stores that it acquired from American Greetings Corp in 2009, as the beginning of its issues. Since then, a "general downtown" in the brick and mortar retail industry has also taken its toll on sales.
The company currently has assets of $39.4 million and liabilities of $54.9 million. In the filing, it said that it has spent the past two years addressing its liquidity issues by negotiating for more favorable terms with suppliers and rents with its landlords but ultimately, it wasn't enough.
"Following its evaluation of all available options, the Company determined that filing for Chapter 11 protection… is the best available option to maximize value for the Company and its stakeholders," it noted in the filing.
You can find a copy of the filing here:
Schurman Fine Papers bankruptcy filing. by Mary Hanbury on Scribd