The Toys “R” Us brand is being brought back to life

The company recently shut down hundreds of stores and let go of thousands of employees

The Toys "R" Us brand is being brought back to life 1

Just months after shuttering hundreds of stores and laying off thousands of workers, Toys “R” Us is poised to make a comeback.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the controlling parties in charge are now eyeing a possible brand revival rather than a bankruptcy selloff as originally planned.

According to court documents filed earlier this week, the group behind the decision to close the franchise “has opted to forgo a much-anticipated bankruptcy auction for its brand name and other intellectual property assets.”

Curiously, this move comes after the controlling parties shut down nearly 800 stores and let go of some 30,000 employees earlier this year.

Court documents suggest intellectual property such as the ‘Toy “R” Us’ and ‘Babies “R” Us’ brand names, Geoffery the Giraffe, registry lists, and web domains are the only assets left from the once bustling company.

Sources say several unnamed companies had placed ’qualified bids’ in the days leading up to the decision to pull the auction. The WSJ reports that the decision was made after the group determined that reestablishing the brand would be of greater benefit to creditors and other stakeholders.

While it’s possible that the winning bidder could have also sought to revive Toys “R” Us, CNN is reporting that companies often seek to purchase bankrupted competitors in an attempt to deaden the brand and capture a greater portion of the market.

Although Toy “R” Us filed for bankruptcy last year, the plan was to shed debt and restructure the company. However, due to an inauspicious 2017 holiday shopping season, the company was no longer able to tread water. According to analysts, the company’s closer has resulted in an $11 billion void in the toy industry.

Despite the group’s interest in a revival, further details are still unknown. Interestingly, this latest news arrives just a month after we learned about the return of FAO Schwarz.

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