Bed Bath & Beyond secures loan deal - reports

Ailing US home goods retailer Bed Bath & Beyond has secured a loan deal, it emerged on Wednesday, in a bid to secure its liquidity issues.

The Wall Street Journal cited “people familiar with the matter” as saying the company had told prospective lenders that it had chosen a lender after a process led by JPMorgan Chase.

It said the chain was seeking around $375m to help pay down debt and pad out its cash on hand, and to reassure suppliers that it could keep up with its invoices.

The company had been struggling to recover from a mis-fire on a 2019 pivot to own-brand products, which ended up alienating customers and sending sales tumbling right before the Covid-19 pandemic decimated bricks-and-mortar retailers.

Both Bed Bath & Beyond and JPMorgan offered no comment on the reports, with the WSJ adding that the terms and size of the deal were not made immediately clear.

The firm’s shares surged early last week on a fresh round of interest from so-called ‘meme investors’ based on the /r/WallStreetBets subreddit.

It was then sent crashing after Ryan Cohen, the chairman of other meme favourite GameStop, announced he was selling off his 10% stake in the company just months after building up his holding.

Reporting by Josh White at Sharecast.com.