Why Did Toys R Us Go Bankrupt? | AJ+ 

"Turn around" is Private Equity's codeword for robbery. It's like a "rescue" boat that spots a boat in distress and shows up to sell the troubled boat for scrap metal.

The high prices drove most of us away

She's from the generation that believed they'd get paid for hard work. The generations that came after all know we'll get paid peanuts for harder work than ever.

My childhood is gone...😢

"I'm from the generation from where hard work should pay off" - Well ... welcome to 2018 ... and say hi to digitalization & automatization (this will cost us a lot more jobs in the future....)

they missed a huge opportunity to turn their stores in playgrounds. similar to chuckie cheese and/or legoworld or something involving sports. toy r us should have included a designated place for kids to play and eat.

Probably 90% of the things in my house came from Amazon.

When you see companies like Walmart, Amazon, Taobao, Tmall and etc selling cheaper toys at such cheap prices online, would you want to visit the physical stores?

Market has changed due to the Internet. People buy clothes online. Kids play games on their phones and iPad instead of toys. They’re watching RU-vid over watching cartoons, and thus, with no one watching cartoons there are no toys to buy since toys historically are modeled after the shows kids watched. Times are changing and it’s just the natural state of capitalism: jobs disappear while other jobs are created (Seattle and SF are flourishing with thousands of high paying tech jobs).

Toys were Us........................ Farewell iconic childhood nostalgia.

Don't say fam, you are not a teenager. It comes across like they you force to say it and its unnatural.

Because of overpriced toys and not much variety.

R.I.P Toys R us T^T I'll forever miss you!

High leveraged buyout... Saved you ten minutes...

Executive pay is never scrutinized the same way as non managment. Executives cut labor pay and then take more than they saved in bonuses and pay increases for perpetuity. THEN executives blame labor for their failure.

HARD WORK doesn't pay off it take away you're life span you wasted 10, 20, or 30 years of you're life away you should not work harder you should work SMARTER

I was working at Amazon when I heard Toy R Us closed their stores. I felt sad

I love your show. Keep up

Did anyone else hear Bain Capital in this Bain Capital is what Mitt Romney was or is running

It makes me sad because by parents would always take me here when I was smaller but now I will never go again I wish we came here more often.

Must think to that today's generation is worried about technology not physical toys

I live in the Philippines. At the local mall the Toys are us is still open.

Nice head wrap presenter.

It's a shame my future children will never know what it is like to walk into a Toys R Us store and I remember putting in job applications before the stores went bankrupt. I always wanted to work there.

Thank you very informative and easy to understand appreciate you having the guts to talk about this very brave of you which just makes your videos more interesting

High prices closed it , my daughter wanted a certain toy , it was £89.99 at toys r us , got it from eBay £62.99 free delivery so saves me time and fuel costs .

I have been a part of the Marine Corps Toys for Tots organization for twenty five years now. Toys Ur Us was one of our number one sponsors donating well over 16 Millions dollars to Toys for Tots. Other customers who would buy toys would put a toy or toys in the box. Without Toys R Us, this year Toys for Tots will be hurting and children's who count on this organization would get nothing for Christmas, Thank You Wall Street for being so greedy.

What amazes me is that after these stores close, the local municipalities rarely receive property tax from the landowners until a new tenant (store) moves in... How is that a real thing? It's a similar problem with foreclosed homes. Once the bank takes your home, they can file to defer the property taxes for years. Often the back taxes are then tacked on to the sale of the property and to the new owner... who then files another deferment (or something like that) to reduce the owed tax amount. This is mind boggling! Whoever owns the land should pay the property taxes regardless of whether it is vacant or not.

Boomers: "I'm from the generation from where hard work should pay off" Also Boomers: "how dare you millennials want fair pay for hard work, stop being entitled."

All the big box stores will be Amazon stores lol

Thank you for the amazing news report. Imaeyen knocked it out of the park.

Why do the banks co-finance these LBOs when they know the private equity firms are just gonna declare bankruptcy?

very good report

Profits for their own sake wouldn't be so bad if a decent portion of those profits flowed back to the common good. But those profits do not. They are being heaped on the already rich who squirrel it away. Buying back stock (shrinking the pool of beneficiaries to profits) that inflate stock prices. Parking money in tax havens. A tiny portion of those profits flow into the pockets of politicians to keep twisting rules in favor of corporations. Laws which crush unions with "right to work". Tax cuts to corporations and rich. Slashing social services. They are digging their own hole. Trump is a symptom of the anger that could have swept Bernie Sanders into the White House had the DNC not put their thumb on the scale for Clinton. Trump is not a champion of people as the attacks on the ACA and massive tax cuts attest to. The young voters are not so easily fooled and are demanding progressive candidates. If they are denied there will be a revolution. If you thought Trump was an angry gnome prepare for a whole generation whom the establishment has been trying to ignore.

Wakanda forever.

Nah it’s because their shit was overpriced so no one bought from them.

Mid 90s changed store layout. .. got rid of many items. .. that was the end.. Hardly any customer after that

AJ+ asking the most important question of our time

So a company makes bad investments and saddles up debt. It’s market share is shrinking and their prices are no longer competitive. An equity company purchases it and tries to save it (they make WAY more money if they’re able to turn the company around) they aren’t able to save it and try to cut their losses the best they can. Bankruptcy is filed and now they can only do what is allowed by law. Including putting the name up for sale. For which no one would purchase because it’s not long term profitable if you also have to purchase their debt. Somehow, the PE firm is totally evil? Crazy stuff, retail is gone as we know it. New stores will rise with better ideas of how to compete it today’s environment. This has been happening since the beginning of time. As long as people have a choice of what to purchase and companies have freedom to make decisions.

It 2020 but still I miss you Toys Rus R.I.P

I can't complain about big box stores being closed especially mall type retailers they don't really contribute much to the local economy. Where smaller retailers (Main St type retailers) contribute more to economy with more local content. It's the shift of our economy thank heavens we need to move from this one store does all having many specialty stores. Theres more outlets for tax revenue for all levels of government, higher employment rates, and more of a community feel to the retail centers of towns. So I say let the big box retailers die.. I hope to live to see the Waltons go bankrupt and Walmart at least under chapter 11 protection

I got the job from them in 2016 it was my first long-term job. I was trying to leave after they cut my hours then they announced they were closing all stores.

Same thing happened to me. Cerberus Capital Management bought the retail company I worked for, worked us to death to make it profitable, then sold us to the competition for a profit. The new company wanted their own people so everyone lost their job. I keep an eye on what the company I work for now does. If we're ever sold off to private equity, I'll put in my two weeks. The only good news is jobs are EVERYWHERE. Believe it or not, the workers do have power...but only to find another job. Wage growth and benefits are still stagnant. If you're wondering how on Earth that's happening, I have two words for you. Civil oligarchy.

Its no longer an american company, toys r us have been bought by a Canadian company, so this means its a canadian toys store now

R. I. P my kids :(

Canadian toys r us is going strong !

Kids don't play with toys anymore, that's why toys r us went out of business

is it weird that i remember the lady y'all interviewed in this????? i'm from north carolina and i went to that durham toys r us a lot as a kid. her face is just familiar to me and i think i've seen her there before. i have lots of good memories of that store too...

toys R Us is closed too in the UK But luckily its open in other country

I'm sad they couldn't find a way to make it.

Thomas and Friends at.4:54

I use to do my back to school shopping here

Am I the only one that feels like this feels like a dateline episode

Playmate is replacing ToyRus

My poor beloved Toys R Us...😢

400 Million of Interest?? that's crazy

$40 dollars bought your child A a Licensed piece of Plastic. $40 buys my household enough chicken to feed them a 2 weeks straight. That's the reason why that store closed.

I have a lot memories in that store

Because of Amazon and Walmart

Aren't we all from generations where hard work should pay off? What generation shouldn't reap the rewards of their labor?

Rip childhood and future childrens childhoods 💔🤦🏽‍♂️😖

One, day we will not have money

I wonder if Mitt Robme bought another 4-car garage with his share of the money?

OPEN TOYS R US!!!

Amazon, WHYYYYY!!!!!!! 😩😩😩😩

We still have Toys R Us here in the Philippines

I'm bringing back that Toys R Us just watch

That place was my childhood

R.I.P my childhood it was my life

It’s not amazon fault you can not keep the selfs stock of the product that sales so why go to a store if you have to wait to get something just order it on line

dang :(

R.I.P childhood

My first job

I hope you looked up the "bane " financial group. For they played a huge issue in toys r us down fall

Very sad!

Durham, NC !

Someone in family worked at the first Toys r us 🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁

I don't want grow up I want be a toy r us kid 😢😢😢😢😢

Private Equity is the problem. K-Mart/Sears are next, thanks to ESL Investments. Mark my words, they're the new corporate raiders.

You know Microsoft, and Android and Target and Walmart. eBay, and Samsung, Linux and Amazon... But do you recallllll... the one to blame for this all?

When is Best Buy, J.C Penny’s, Sears, and K-Mart going to see their demise?

;-; R.I.P my childhood.

I didn't get to see TOYS R US much cause I'm only ten 😫😫😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭☹️🙁😖😭😢😭😩

I miss them

This is what happens when you leave your fate to a company and rely on just one income source. If you work for someone else, learn a skill, start your own business and don’t let a company or wall street decide for you or your family. Personally, starting my own business was the best decision I’ve ever made.

The end of my childhood

I am not sure why there is so much hate in private equity. first of all, the Private Equity couldn't get hold of the business if it wasn't failing, most failing companies goes private, hopefully for a turnaround. When turnaround effort doesn't seem to be possible, the firm then savage all it can for its investors which seems to be the right thing to do. If it was your money, you wouldn't want someone continue to pay out checks to people while not making money yourself. The company that took toy r us have made some good success with other acquisition that eventually turned it around and is now profitable. just google and do some research. no Private Equity can last forever if all it do is repackage and sell at a loss, they have to be able to turnaround some companies in order to find investors for buyout. So it's wrong to say that Private Equity makes money even if business fails and etc, all these people see is "oh, they sold store for $xx" but they all seems to forgot toys r us were bought out at nearly $7B, that money didn't drop from the sky....

Unfortunately it isn't going to be open again.

Adding a cost can break the bank.

It's called filing for bankruptcy we do this all time we either sold our business are we take and change the name of our business it's filing for bankruptcy are what we take dicide to do for whatever reason

We still have stores in Kuwait!

Video and sound not in sync.

R.I.P. my dreams of going to toys are us 😱😵😢😱😵😱😵😱😵😱😵😱😵😱😢😢😢😢😢

toysRus, oh that expensive toy store? target, kmart, walmart, amazon, ebay and any other store and online site had the same toys, cheaper... and events like blackfriday, for the last years, toysRus put discounts only on the toys no body wanted. I have 3 kids under 10, I buy lots of toys, so I look at prices.

I think it is still alive in Saudi Arabia...If you are Saudi correct me

everything is going digital...

The worst company I worked for.

It’s not about money it’s about kids think about them games and toys you can’t let them down

rip toys r us :(

Wow i used to work there a long time ago they were doing real good back then i guess because people stop having babies remember this TOY "R" US had others stores KIDS " R" US, BOYS " R " US , GIRLS " R " US when people cut back having babies or getting no kids it's sad because those people needs their jobs i never been married or got any kids myself it more harder for them because they probably have kids and grandchildren