RadioShack has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a pre-packaged plan to sell upward of 2,400 of its stores to majority shareholder and lead lender Standard General.
Under the plan, General Wireless, a newly created Standard General affiliate, would acquire from 1,500 to 2,400 of the company-owned stores.
As many as 1,750 of those locations would be co-branded with Sprint, and would feature store-within-a-store Sprint area.
The wireless carrier said it would operate and staff the shops, which would occupy about a third of the sales floor, and would sell its pre- and postpaid mobile plans and devices.
The stores would also sell RadioShack products, services and accessories, but Sprint would be the primary brand on storefronts. The move would more than double Sprint’s retail footprint in the U.S.
In a statement, Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure said the deal would allow the carrier “to grow branded distribution quickly and cost-effectively in prime locations,” and that the two brands will benefit from “operational efficiencies and by cross-marketing to each other’s customers.”
According to the Chapter 11 filing, Sprint is the retailer’s second largest unsecured creditor, owed just over $6 million. The carrier was the chain’s first, at the beginning, the chain’s exclusive cellular service partner in the 1990s.
The restof RadioShack’s remaining 4,100 company-owned stores will be shuttered following a fire sale conducted by liquidators Hilco Merchant Resources, Gordon Brothers Retail Partners and Tiger Capital Group.
RadioShack quietly began its own two-phase inventory liquidations in about 1,000 underperforming stores starting last October, the company revealed in its filing.
The fire sales are expected to continue through the end of March.
