George S. May Business Blog

91 year old Ritz Camera files for Chapter 11

In more unfortunate news, Ritz Camera Centers Inc. has filed for bankruptcy protection. Ritz Camera officials blame a deepening U.S. recession and consumers’ transition to digital photography for their demise.

Ritz Camera had sales of almost $1 billion last year but also has both assets and debt of less than $500 million. Ritz, in the process of filing the Chapter 11 paperwork in a Delaware Bankruptcy Court, also sought court permission to tap a new $85 million loan from existing secured lenders.

This news summed with the fall other major US chains like Circuit City, really provides the American tax payer with a gauge of how bad the U.S. economy has gotten. Ritz Camera is 91 years old and has 800 locations in 40 states. Ritz Camera also owns Wolf Camera, Kits Cameras, Inkley’s and the Camera Shops.

Another industry that Ritz has been invested in for quite some time is boating and fishing. Unbeknownst to many, Ritz Camera actually owns 130 Boater’s World Marine Centers. The stores are located from Maine to Florida and also in Texas, California, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Nevada, according to the unit’s Web site. Unfortunately for Ritz Camera, the rise in fuel prices helped lead to a “sharp” drop in sales at the unit’s stores, the company said in the filing.

It is unfortunate to see the demise of such a long standing company as Ritz Camera. But, Ritz did not react to the signs of the times. Digital photography has been gaining steam for a very long time. They could have reacted and reformatted, rather than sitting around hoping it would go away. Hopefully, after this filing they will be able to restructure themselves in a way that they will be able to reset up shop geared more toward the digital world.

Related posts:

1. Capmark Financial Group files Chapter 11 After posting a $1.6 billion Q2 loss, commercial real estate lender Capmark Financial Group will be filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy. CEO Jay Levine referred to...


2. Mesa Air files for bankruptcy For those unaware, Mesa Air Group filed for Chapter 11 Tuesday in a New York federal bankruptcy court. Mesa chairman and chief executive officer Jonathan...