The bankruptcy auction for The Bon-Ton Stores Inc., originally scheduled for Monday, was rescheduled and will instead be held on Tuesday.
According to a filing with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, the auction will be held on Tuesday at 9 a.m., Central Time, at the office of Bon-Ton’s law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in New York.
Bon-Ton is the parent company of Boston Store and has its corporate headquarters in Milwaukee and York, Pennsylvania. The company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year.
On Friday, the company filed a notice with the state Department of Workforce Development indicating that 2,255 Wisconsin employees could potentially lose their jobs if it company does not find a going-concern buyer at the upcoming bankruptcy auction.
Those employees work at the company’s corporate office in downtown Milwaukee and at stores in Brookfield, Eau Claire, Glendale, Greendale, Janesville, Madison, Marshfield, Milwaukee, Racine and Wauwatosa, according to the notice.
Besides Wisconsin, Bon-Ton has filed WARN notices in several other states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and South Dakota over the last two days. It is legally required to provide employees with 60 days notice before they lose their jobs.
These layoffs will only occur if the company fails to attract a going-concern buyer at the bankruptcy auction.
If it fails to attract a going-concern buyer, the company could be acquired by its bondholders, who could liquidate the company, which would end all of its operations, resulting in the closure of all of Bon-Ton’s stores.
Bon-Ton, which has 22,745 employees and 254 stores, previously announced plans to close 47 stores this year, including nine stores in Wisconsin. The only store in the Milwaukee area that is slated to close at this time is the Boston Store clearance store on South 27th Street in Milwaukee.
