Rebuilding a brand

You have to admire the determination of Robert Levin. He has doggedly pursued an effort to buy back the furniture company that bears his family name and salvage it from bankruptcy — all in an effort to save jobs and do right by customers who were “left in the lurch” by the former owners.

The fact that he has not given up on his plan to reopen the company — albeit with fewer stores — is all the more remarkable when you consider he’s doing so in the midst of a pandemic that has closed or limited most businesses.

Mr. Levin reached an agreement with the lender and bankruptcy trustee on a $25.7 million deal to reacquire the Levin brand name along with store inventory, trucks and equipment. Included is $10 million earmarked for customers who put down deposits or made payment on furniture that was not delivered.

If the scenario seems vaguely familiar, it’s because Mr. Levin appeared to have a deal worked out two months ago that had employees celebrating his return to ownership. Within a few days, the deal fell apart, and the company’s future seemed uncertain once more.

This time, he is confident that a bankruptcy judge will sign off on the deal and that he will return as chairman of the board for the company he sold in 2017. He hopes to retain several hundred employees and, most importantly, establish a plan for repayment or store credit for those customers affected by the bankruptcy.

“We feel we have to re-establish the trust in the Levin name, even though I was not running this company when it went bankrupt and customers lost their deposits,” he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

That’s a commitment that other companies would do well to follow.