Caldor To Close 145 Stores

Discount retailer Caldor Corp., which has operated under bankruptcy court protection since 1995, announced Friday it was closing its 145 stores for good.

The decision to liquidate the company follows the refusal of a group of creditors to agree to a plan of reorganization, Caldor management said in a news release.

"We accomplished a great deal over the course of the last several years," Caldor Chairman Warren Feldberg said. "However, given the nature of our capital structure and the shortfall to our performance goals, the board had no alternative."

At Caldor's headquarters, employees streamed from the building at noon carrying the contents of their desks in cardboard boxes.

Anna Viera worked in Caldor's purchasing department for six years. She said employees were given the news in a series of morning meetings.

"It's really a sad situation. We've been around for 50 years. It's sad to see it happen," she said.

Al Musson, who ran the merchandise presentation department, said employees had begun expecting the news, especially after learning the company had stopped paying vendors or buying anything new.

"It happens," he said. "You move on."

The $2.5 billion company, with about 20,000 employees, operates stores in nine East Coast and Mid-Atlantic states including Connecticut and New York.

Going-out-of-business sales will likely begin in several weeks and be completed by May, the company said. Caldor will also seek a court order allowing it to sell its real estate assets.

Caldor sought bankruptcy court protection in September 1995, and was aiming to emerge from that protection this spring.

But the company was unable to come to terms that satisfied everyone, particularly a group of secured creditors who opposed reorganization plans proposed by the board. The identities of the creditors were not immediately available.

The company was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange last year, and announced Jan. 9 that it was no longer ordering or taking delivery of new stock from its suppliers.

There were reports last week that Caldor was in negotiation to sell 64 of its stores to other retailers, possibly Kohl's, Target and Kmart. But no deal was ever announced, and the status of any sale talks was not immediately clear in light of Caldor's decision to liquidate.

Written By Denise Lavoie