WWD Digital Daily

Tailored Brands Seeks $ 75M To Keep Operating

● The Men’s Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank operator emerged from bankruptcy in early December.

- BY JEAN E. PALMIERI

Less than three months after exiting Chapter 11, Tailored Brands is back in the market seeking additional financing.

The retailer, which owns Men’s Wearhouse, Jos. A Bank and Moores in Canada, emerged from bankruptcy as a private company in early December, but is now seeking some $75 million in order to continue operating, according to papers filed in the Southern District of Texas last week.

The trust that is still working its way through bankruptcy court owns a portion of the company’s equity.

According to a notice of an emergency bankruptcy court hearing, Tailored Brands Inc. “experience­d unanticipa­ted declines in its business” in December 2020 and early 2021, which caused the company to “severely underperfo­rm against the financial projection­s upon which its Chapter 11 plan of reorganiza­tion was based.”

As a result, the company has determined it needs to obtain $75 million in additional financing by the beginning of March, the papers said. In consultati­on with its advisers, PJT Advisors and AlixPartne­rs, it was determined that Silver Point Capital

LP, one of its existing lenders and its largest equity holder, will provide $25 million to the exiting priority term loan and $50 million secured on a subordinat­ed basis, the papers said. That loan would be converted to equity within three years at $1 a share.

The loan is expected to be closed sometime this week, according to published reports, subject to bankruptcy court approval.

The trustee in the bankruptcy case, after analyzing the company’s performanc­e since emerging from Chapter 11 in December, “believes the company is in need of additional financing in order to survive the pandemic. The trustee believes that certain losses experience­d in recent months may be permanent and do not just reflect a temporary shift in demand.” And without the additional loan, it would “likely result in another restructur­ing process, putting the company at risk of potential liquidatio­n.”

Even so, there was pushback to the proposed loan. In a letter to the court, creditor Yosef Magid requested the court deny the motion and “force the debtors back into Chapter 11” since the deal would “materially change the terms of the confirmati­on plan,” essentiall­y represents a sale of 73 percent of the company to “an insider,” and there are no competing offers to Silver Point.

During its bankruptcy, the company eliminated $686 million of debt from its balance sheet, closed some 500 stores and negotiated a $430 million asset-based loan facility, a $365 million exit-term loan and $75 million of cash from a new debt facility.

Tailored Brands did not immediatel­y respond to requests for comment.

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