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Auction Could Mean The End For Linens 'N Things

News Channel 8 photo by PAUL LAMISON

A customer walks into Linens 'n Things on North Dale Mabry Highway in Tampa. The Tampa area has 10 of the stores.

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By KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 9, 2008

TAMPA - Over the next week, shoppers at Linens 'n Things probably won't notice much of a difference. There still will be the aggressive retail marketing plan that offers slashed prices and deals. But after Tuesday, there could be some drastic changes.

Linens Holdings Co., the New Jersey-based corporation that owns the 33-year-old retailer, filed for protection in federal bankruptcy court in May and has settled on a plan to auction off all of the business's inventory.

Rich Tauberman, spokesman for Linens Holdings, said this morning that just how the Linens 'n Things landscape will look after next week, when the auction will take place, is anybody's guess.

"It's the start of the process this week," he said. "We don't know which way it will go. Nothing will happen until auction process completed. It would be premature to say that all the stores will close, some will close or none of the stores will close."

The Tampa Bay region has 10 Linens 'n Things outlets from Brooksville to Sarasota to Winter Garden. There are two in Tampa, one in Brandon and stores in Clearwater, Lakeland, Port Richey and St. Petersburg.

Across the nation, 6,600 people work at the stores.

Tauberman said the store could not pay its debts and filed for protection to reorganize, but as the economy turned sour, real estate values plummeted, credit became difficult to get and executives decided to go the auction route.

A couple of outcomes are possible, he said. A single bidder could buy the company and keep all or some of the stores open, or the business could be bought at auction by a liquidator who could sell off the inventory and close up shop.

"Over the next week, we will start the auction process," Tauberman said.

The auction is set for Tuesday, and once a deal is struck, a bankruptcy judge is scheduled to rule on the sale the next day, he said.

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 or kmorelli@tampatrib.com.

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