NEW YORK – Discount retailer Steve & Barry’s may be in financial trouble, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend.
The chain famous for Stephon Marbury’s $8.98 basketball shoes and clothing lines endorsed by Sarah Jessica Parker and Venus Williams has hired Goldman Sachs Group to help find financing and a bankruptcy lawyer to advise in restructuring. The chain needs about $30 million, says the Journal. The retailer isn’t commenting.
Steve & Barry’s has grown quickly and kept prices incredibly low by making sweet deals with mall owners for space vacated by department stores or other large retailers. Many of those deals have included substantial one-time build-out payments, payments that some say have been the primary source of income for the chain. Therein lies the problem.
Steve & Barry’s was founded in 1985 by Steven Shore and Barry Prevor as a discount collegiate apparel store on the University of Pennsylvania campus. Today it has 270 stores in 40 states with a projected 2008 revenue of almost $1 billion.
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