Finlay Finally Has Finale

-- JCK Online, 11/1/2009 1:00:00 AM

About a month after it filed a long-awaited Chapter 11, Finlay is liquidating its assets, including the Bailey Banks & Biddle chain and the highly regarded chains Carlyle and Co. and Congress Jewelers.

Liquidator Gordon Bros. was the high bidder at the Sept. 23 auction for Finlay's assets. The company bid 85.75 percent on asset inventory, estimated at $116 million at press time.

Gordon Bros. is also running the going-out-of-business sales for the 58 stores Finlay announced it was closing before its Chapter 11 filing, which means it will run going-out-of-business sales for the entire 104-store chain.

It's possible some stores will be bought once those sales are complete, one source said. Among the bidders in the auction was a consortium that included the Cohen family, which owned the Carlyle chain before it was sold to Finlay.

Finlay's problems were no secret in the industry. Its stock has been trading at two cents, and prior to the filing, it publicly acknowledged doubts about its ability to function as a going concern. In fiscal year 2008, it lost over $100 million.

Finlay Timeline

1887 Finlay begins as a mail-order business.

1942 A regional department store asks Finlay to take over its jewelry departments. Eventually it becomes the largest operator of leased jewelry departments in America.

January 1995 Arthur Reiner joins the company, which now runs more than 900 leased departments, as chairman and CEO. Reiner, then 54, previously headed Macy's East.

April 1995 Finlay goes public with an initial public offering.

April 2003 Finlay gets the first of several blows to its leased department business when Federated doesn't renew Finlay's leases in its Burdines department store division.

March 2005 Finlay acquires the Carlyle and Co. chain for $80 million.

September 2005 Finlay loses 194 jewelry departments because of Federated Department Store's acquisition of May Department Stores.

May 2006 Finlay's loses its Belk's department store business.

November 2006 Finlay acquires five-store chain Congress Jewelers in a stock purchase agreement.

September 2007 Finlay buys Bailey Banks & Biddle from Zale for $200 million.

July 2008 With its stock price falling, Finlay is suspended from trading on Nasdaq. It eventually moves to the OTC Bulletin Board.

February 2009 Finlay exits the leased department business, plans to run a pared-down 50-store chain.

August 2009 Finlay files for Chapter 11.