Charming Charlie IP sold for $1.1M in bankruptcy – Retail Dive

Dive Brief:

Charming Charlie's IP sale is a reminder that there is still value in the brand of a defunct retailer. Peress said in court papers that Hilco had contact with nearly 500 potential buyers of Charming Charlie's assets. Ultimately, 13 interested potential buyers signed non-disclosure agreements and five submitted bids ahead of deadline. The opening bid was $200,000.

All of the women's apparel and accessories retailer's stores are now closed, Peress noted in court papers, and its e-commerce site currently notifies customers that it is not taking orders but to keep checking back. Included in the sale along with trademarks and typical brand signifiers are hordes of data from Charming Charlie's mailing lists and loyalty program.

The IP of retailers that have wound down can still fetch big dollars in bankruptcies. Some examples from the current period of retail consolidation:

The sales represent the range of potential buyers that go bargain shopping at retailer fire sales, among them brand-holding companies, rivals and investors. In Charming Charlie's case, the man who created the retailer's brand known for its color-coded merchandising scheme came back to fetch it out of bankruptcy.

It's not clear yet what he'll do with it, but the options are several. Some retail brands end up on product labels, some reemerge as online-only players and a fair number come back with physical footprints. In that latter category recently are Toys R Us, Bon-Ton, Charlotte Russe and H.H. Gregg. In every case, the resurrected physical footprints are modest, very modest even, relative to those that were liquidated.

However, the money and effort involved are reminders that retailers fail for all kinds of reasons and ultimately because of a mismatch between expenses and sales in a given moment in time but failure doesn't mean that those brands have zero value. What's left may be greatly diminished, but it's still often a better deal than building a brand from scratch.

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Charming Charlie IP sold for $1.1M in bankruptcy - Retail Dive