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Eastern Mountain Sports has its new lifeline.
The U.K.’s leading outdoor apparel and equipment retailer Mountain Warehouse has finalized a deal to acquire certain key assets of bankrupt Eastern Mountain Sports (EMS) for $10 million. The agreement will keep all seven profitable stores open, the website in operation and secure the jobs of more than 100 of EMS’ staff employed.
EMS and its sibling Bob’s Stores fell into bankruptcy when its operating parent Mountain Sports LLC filed its Chapter 11 petition this past June. Bob’s is liquidating all units. EMS was luckier, having secured a stalking-horse bid from the U.K. retailer for at least $5 million for the intellectual property and certain other assets. There was also a provision to pay a percentage of certain inventory in the store locations, which initially was expected to bump up the total transactional value to $8 million. The big question early last month when the stalking-horse bid was disclosed in bankruptcy court papers was the uncertainty of which stores would stay open. EMS...