Frederick’s of Hollywood files Chapter 11; closes all stores

Los Angeles -- Frederick's of Hollywood Group filed Chapter 11 after earlier closing all of its 94 remailing stores and entering into an agreement to sell its online business, inventory and intellectual property to Authentic Brands Group LLC for a reported $22.5 million.



Founded in 1947, the privately held retailer of sexy lingerie cited competition (it faced an especially formidable rival in Victoria’s Secret), decreased mall traffic and leases in its filing. It listed $36.5 million in assets and $106 million in debt.



In 2014, Frederick’s was taken private by a unit of New York-based Harbinger Group Inc., which wrote off $60.2 million in goodwill impairment related to Frederick’s in a February regulatory filing.



Frederick’s has been struggling, and gone through multiple owners, for some time, dating back to a $70 million leveraged buyout in 1997 that left the company with heavy debt. It filed its first Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in 2000. At the time, it had 200 stores and had a reported $70 million in debt. It emerged from bankruptcy in 2003 following a massive restructuring.