Sounds like Whitehall is trying to make out like bandits on this deal. However, the vendors knew what they were getting into when they lent their goods to Whitehall. The company has had issues for years. The real crime is what this is going to mean to the 2500+ employees. As a Friedmans employee working my last week, I can sympathize.

It's definitely a confession that they're closing up shop for good--no vendor is going to touch them after this.

Oops, hit "enter" before I meant to. Gone hits the real point, and it's not just losing their jobs that is going to hurt. Try to imagine how hard it will be to continue working with the same vendors as a former Whitehall buyer or store manager--the stench from this tactic, if it works, will linger for years.

Yikes, can they legally do this? There is no way they are going to keep doing business after trying to pull of this theft. Isn't that what it amounts to? I would love to see some of the filings/briefs like the documents we had for Freidman's.

This has been a flawed business plan from the very beginning. How could anyone have expected or respected a management team that would totally change a business plan in order to directly compete with the likes of Zales, Sterling, Walmart etc. without the financial ability to properly market themselves. Someone at Prentis Capital should have seen the signs and been on suicide watch. This was supposed to be an experience team! Bring on the "SUBS"!

The heads at Whitehall (Dayoob et al) are an experienced team. What they have done, however, is corporate suicide. It makes no sense why they have done what they have done and it is sheer mismanagement that led to their Friedmans acquisition. These stores they bought were not the most profitable or successful. Some were real dogs only making one month out of the last twelve. I will be amazed if criminal charges don't come from this.

This has been a long time coming. I was wondering what the heck they thought they were doing when, after borrowing in excess of 30 million dollars, they go ahead and borrow yet further to purchase the bottom of the barrel that Friedman's was. They must have thought it was a last ditch effort to save them....or just drive them further into the ground which it has.

As for what locations Whitehall bought...Someone had said they took the top 15% of all Crescent locations, and assumed they took a top X% of Friedman's locations too. Whitehall only bought two Crescent locations in my area, one in a power center and one in an outlet mall. Neither of those areas had a Whitehall store. Still, it looks like they did buy some overlapping locations to try use their Lundstrom brand. I feel really bad for everyone caught up in this mess, and I really do hope Whitehall's corporate office is communicating with their employees and not leaving them to find out through this website what is happening (as per the Friedman's explosion of comments we had a while back).