Toys R' Us. / Will Model RR collectors miss them?

OldBogie posted:

Roger Peet posted:

I have never outgrown visiting large footprint toy retailers. News is circulating in business pages that Toys R' Us ( I can't print the backward "R") is in financial trouble and will likely close it's retail door. "Toy's" sold model railroad product and created some uncataloged Lionel 0-Gauge product. They created a TOFC I have never found but always wanted. #6-16378 ( 1992-93 ). It is clear there are large changes in the toy business and Lionel creates "Made to order" .. Which means to me .. "You can't really see what till you buy it" (?). Change is always with us and I wonder how many will really miss the Toys R' Us for your model RR supplier? Will the Lionel Toys product keep or gain it's value?  Here's one. 

Just the latest from Mitt Romney's Bain Capitol organization. Buy a going organization with leveraged money. Then split the business up into profitable real estate in one pile and everything else in another. Then sell the real estate to pay themselves and the leverage lenders then walk away from the carcass.

Bogie

Agreed, although Romney hasn't been involved with Bain Capital since his presidential aspirations. His day-to-day involvement in the private equity firm he founded ended in 1999.

Bain Capital did the same thing to KB Toys beginning in 2000. Bain "bought" KB for about $300 million, but actually only paid $18 million, leveraging the rest as debt against a company that never was structured to absorb that debt. Two years later, the 1,200-store chain closed half its stores during a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and almost at the same point Bain took a $100 million dividend from store operations.

The cycle continued, with a series of store closings that further reduced the chain from roughly 600 stores, to 400 stores, to 300 stores and, finally, at the end of 2008 to zero.

I worked part time at KB for nearly 10 years as a supplementary job, and was there to see it all until January 2008.

Ray Lombardo posted:

OldBogie posted:

Roger Peet posted:

I have never outgrown visiting large footprint toy retailers. News is circulating in business pages that Toys R' Us ( I can't print the backward "R") is in financial trouble and will likely close it's retail door. "Toy's" sold model railroad product and created some uncataloged Lionel 0-Gauge product. They created a TOFC I have never found but always wanted. #6-16378 ( 1992-93 ). It is clear there are large changes in the toy business and Lionel creates "Made to order" .. Which means to me .. "You can't really see what till you buy it" (?). Change is always with us and I wonder how many will really miss the Toys R' Us for your model RR supplier? Will the Lionel Toys product keep or gain it's value?  Here's one. 

Just the latest from Mitt Romney's Bain Capitol organization. Buy a going organization with leveraged money. Then split the business up into profitable real estate in one pile and everything else in another. Then sell the real estate to pay themselves and the leverage lenders then walk away from the carcass.

Bogie

You realize that there was a willing seller(s) as well.  Were you willing to buy the firm yourself or are you merely looking to restrict the rights of other people to dispose of their property as they see fit? The buyers, sellers, and lenders in these transactions are all big boys and girls and are very well advised.  Sometimes the deals do not work out and do you know who loses out then?  The buyers and the lenders who financed the deal.  It's called capitalism.  There is a certain amount of creative destruction that goes on as part of it.  Kill the destruction, and you kill the creation that gives us Amazon, Google, Uber, and Apple.  If you don't like it, move to France and check out how well they are doing.  How many of those firms are in Europe?  Hmmm, let me think, maybe they are too busy suing US firms who are eating their lunch while they figure out how to preserve a 19th and 20th century industrial economy.

As to the store, growing up in the 1970s and 1980s I remember that it had a cool selection of all toys other than o gauge trains - RC cars, slot cars, action figures like GI Joe and Star Wars, and video games too.  But like all things, times change and businesses must adapt.  Toys R Us did not adapt correctly.  I suspect that if the firm's income statement shows profitability once the debt load is stripped out to all or some degree, the firm will live.  Another consideration is the real estate.  If the firm's real estate, once liquidated, will provide a higher recovery for the creditors, the firm will likely be fully liquidated.  We have a good bankruptcy process in this country and it has the ability to sort these issues out in the most equitable manner possible for the creditors.  It is a shame that people will lose their jobs but in a healthy and well functioning economy they will hopefully find other work quickly.

Ray:

What you say about change is spot on but, please; allow us old farts to grumble a bit and lament the passing of another familiar face from the retail world.  ;-)

Curt

   You should not be able be able to dismantle a large succesful business just because the oportunity presents itself. IMO, a coporation is not a person with rights, not even close. Too big to fail showed there is something very weak in our system as much as the loans gone wild game. Debt doesn't sound successful to me though.

  I saw a lot of pensions and lifes ruined from buyouts of long standing names with great assets but the stock had tanked and there was baulking on debt for buy back, so some jerky company would secrectly gain control and wipe out a couple of thoudand jobs for no CONSTRUCTIVE reason other than to sell them off during the 70s. By constructive, I mean those investors would likely have ate dinner regardless, so pardon me if I don't weep when a few 'big dogs' have to drive a Benz for two tears straight or ride first class vs private jet for a while to keep things humane.  You might say this is is another era, grow up.... Yep, ....I kinda set you aallll up, lol....

 ♪♪♪  Iiiiiii don't want to grow up, Im a Toys R Us kid, theres lots of toys at Toys R Us you'll really flip your lid! ♪♪♪

 If you don't like it here, you can go to...to....to vote!

Consider myself a collector but have not bought any trains from Toys R Us since 1985 (purchased the 6-1354 Northern Freight Flyer set then as the only way to obtain the 6-8375 CNW GP7 with the new can motors). Checked in the interim when shopping occasionally for children and grandchildren but observed nothing to miss. 

What, me worry?

Adriatic posted:

   You should not be able be able to dismantle a large succesful business just because the oportunity presents itself. IMO, a coporation is not a person with rights, not even close. Too big to fail showed there is something very weak in our system as much as the loans gone wild game. Debt doesn't sound successful to me though.

  I saw a lot of pensions and lifes ruined from buyouts of long standing names with great assets but the stock had tanked and there was baulking on debt for buy back, so some jerky company would secrectly gain control and wipe out a couple of thoudand jobs for no CONSTRUCTIVE reason other than to sell them off during the 70s. By constructive, I mean those investors would likely have ate dinner regardless, so pardon me if I don't weep when a few 'big dogs' have to drive a Benz for two tears straight or ride first class vs private jet for a while to keep things humane.  You might say this is is another era, grow up.... Yep, ....I kinda set you aallll up, lol....

 ♪♪♪  Iiiiiii don't want to grow up, Im a Toys R Us kid, theres lots of toys at Toys R Us you'll really flip your lid! ♪♪♪

 If you don't like it here, you can go to...to....to vote!

What, You should not be able to dismantle a large Company!  Lol - s this Country in trouble. Toys R us is successful? Really? That's why they are seeking reorganization?

Capitalism, businesses thrive and fail. If Someone,  or a group of investors thinks plowing  money into saving toys R us would derive some sort of financial gain. That is their choice...to keep the Company alive for future gain. Or chop it up and desolve for instant financial gain.

Do, you consider toys r us a mom and pop store? The are part of the toy monopoly. Walmart, toys r us and target.

I agree the landscape is changing! Anti - monopoly laws need the be Enforced.

But, competition works!  In the meantime stay away from the Karl Marx train books.

joining the conversation late.  Politics aside, bankruptcy filing does not mean the company is going out of business.  It's a means to restructure debt and promote financial viability.  Toys is the #2 national seller of toys behind Amazon, so there is a lot of income potential there. 

To the question posed in the original post, I go to my LHS for purchases from brick and mortar stores.  Never looked for any train items at Walmart or Toys. 

Toys R Us really is irrelevant to today's O gauge world, which is filled with operators who insist on scale items.

However, back in the fun filled days of toy trains, both KB (once known as Kay-Bee Toy and Hobby) and TRU once did stock a small selection of N, HO and O gauge sets, including exclusive HO and O sets that featured a Kay-Bee Toy Stores boxcar (Lionel 6-7932) and Toys R Us boxcar (Lionel 6-7914 and 6-16806).

Just keep in mind that Toys R US's current struggles are mostly tied to debt loaded on it as part of its acquisition by Bain 12 years ago. The debt was not accrued due to horrific sales and operational costs. 

While Toys R Us doesn't really affect me nowadays in the hobby, I will say it was arguably the best way for me to get the Thomas Wooden Railway products that I loved as a child, and the had the most different product in stock.

That being said, I find it quite coincidental that Toys R Us is filing bankruptcy the same time the Thomas Wooden Railway is getting completely changed into Thomas WOOD, which...well... not good.

WRR:

vs. Wood: