Brick-and-Mortar Meltdown Fells Express. Simon Property & Brookfield, to Avert Vacant Stores and Bad Leases at Their Malls, to Buy the Brands and 435 Stores Out of Bankruptcy

by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street

This Has Been Years in the Making.

Express Inc, once a high-flying fashion retailer for the younger crowd with 542 stores in the US, and with three brands – Express, UpWest, and Bonobos – finally filed for pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy today.

Since its heyday in 2016, the company has already closed 114 stores. The store count had peaked in the fiscal year ended January 2017 at 656 stores. Now it will close another 95 Express stores and all its 12 UpWest stores, bringing the store count to about 435 stores.

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