PORT ANGELES — The RadioShack store at 1940 E. First St. has begun a clearance sale prior to closing.
“As of today, this store is on the closing list,” Sheldon Koehler, an employee, said Thursday.
Genna Ferrie, assistant store manager, said closing signs were put up Wednesday night.
“We do not have a date yet” for closing, she said.
The Port Angeles store is one of about 4,000 company locations, only 1,700 of which will be bought by Standard General LP, a New York-based hedge fund.
Stores in Sequim and Port Townsend are independently owned franchise operations that will not be affected by a bankruptcy plan approved Tuesday by a Delaware court, managers of those stores said.
Four employees
Closing the Port Angeles store will affect its four remaining employees, Ferrie and Koehler said. Three work part time; one — Ferrie — works full time.
A bankruptcy court in Dover, Del., allowed Standard General to buy 1,700 stores — which employ more than 7,000 people — by including in its bid the company’s $112 million in debt.
The decision came over the objection of Salus Capital Partners of Massachusetts, a lender whose $150 million claim puts it among the electronics retailer’s biggest creditors.
RadioShack, based in Fort Worth, Texas, filed for bankruptcy in February following a long slide in sales lost to Internet competitors, especially in urban areas, according to the Wall Street Journal.
New York City’s Manhattan, for instance, once boasted 30 RadioShack stores; it soon will have fewer than six.
Meanwhile, the name of the surviving company stores is uncertain.
Standard General has six months of rights to the RadioShack brand name, but another company could bid for the company’s trademark — and its millions of customers’ names, addresses and email addresses.
Radio Shack — originally two names — was started in 1921 by Theodore and Milton Deutschmann to provide equipment for the amateur radio field.
The Tandy Corp. acquired the firm in 1963, marking the company’s start as a personal electronics retailer.
In 2000, Tandy Corp. changed its name to RadioShack Corp.
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com
