💥New Chapter 22 Bankruptcy Filing - JOANN Inc.💥

Vendors and junior lenders get clipped in retailer's second trip into Delaware.

Recently, an Ohio-based brick-and-mortar retailer with hundreds of locations and north of half a billion dollars of funded debt filed chapter 11 cases in the District of Delaware looking to pursue a transaction with an at-hand stalking horse supported by a prepetition agent and lender on a truncated timeline.

Sensing déjà vu?

Source: Tenor. It’s a glitch in something but it sure as f*ck ain’t the matrix.

We wouldn’t fault you if you were but we’ve covered Big Lots Inc. elsewhere. Enter JOANN, Inc. (“JOANN”) and 12 affiliates (collectively and together with JOANN, the “debtors,” and together with their sole foreign non-debtor affiliate, the “company”).

On January 15, 2025 and after having emerged from bankruptcy a short 8.5 months prior on April 30, 2024, the formerly-Leonard Green & Partners, L.P. (“LGP”)-owned* debtors filed brand spanking new chapter 11 bankruptcy cases in that Honorable Court (Judge Goldblatt, again), hoping to gain approval by no later than February 22, 2025 of an agreement with Big Lots-buyer Gordon Brothers Retail Partners, LLC (“GBRP”).** GBRP also happens to be an affiliate of the aforementioned agent and lender under the debtors’ FILO facility, 1903P Loan Agent, LLC (“1903 Agent”) and 1903 Partners, LLC (together with 1903 Agent, the “1903 Parties”), which isn’t sus at all. Man, these three sure have been gallivanting around in quite a few recent bankruptcy cases.*** If this keeps up, we’ll be dangerously close to being able to write these articles Mad Libs-style.

We covered the debtors’ prior financial-restructuring-focused bankruptcy cases back in March ‘24:

💥New Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Filing - JOANN Inc. ($JOAN)💥

The business itself hasn’t really changed, and debtors’ counsel, Kirkland & Ellis LLP (“K&E”) (Josh Sussberg, Aparna Yenamandra, Anup Sathy, Jeffrey Michalik, Lindsey Blumenthal), probably didn’t even need to refresh the first days of the debtors’ former counsel, Latham & Watkins LLP,**** but, who are we kidding, they’d never pass up that scrumptious opportunity. For the newcomers, let’s break it down.