Overstock.com will relaunch Bed Bath & Beyond after buying the troubled home goods retailer’s intellectual property in bankruptcy proceedings for $21.5 million.
In a press release Wednesday afternoon, Overstock saying that within the next week, a new Bed Bath & Beyond website would debut in Canada, followed weeks later by the relaunch of a revamped website, mobile app and loyalty program in the United States.
At that time, the company said, Overstock and Bed Bath & Beyond customers will find a single online shopping destination at bedbathhandbeyond.com.
“Bed Bath & Beyond is an iconic consumer brand, well known in the home retail market,” said Overstock CEO Jonathan Johnson. “The combination of our winning asset-light business model and Bed Bath & Beyond’s strong brand awareness and loyalty will enhance the customer experience and position the company for accelerated market share growth.”
A bankruptcy court judge on Tuesday approved Overstock’s $21.5 million cash offer for Bed Bath & Beyond’s intellectual property assets. The company said the move would not affect Bed Bath & Beyond’s brick-and-mortar store locations, which are still scheduled to close.
The move also won’t affect Buy Buy Baby, which may now be scheduled for two separate auctions according to CNBC, one for the network’s intellectual property, including its trademark and domain; and another for its physical stores.
Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy in April, and the fate of its Buy Buy Baby subsidiary remains to be seen.
At the time of filing for bankruptcy, Bed Bath & Beyond reported debts of more than $5 billion. The company went out of business despite multiple attempts to revive the declining brand, including a short-lived intervention last year by current GameStop chief executive Ryan Cohen. Part of Cohen’s proposed restructuring strategy involved spinning off Buy Buy Baby, which he said in a March 2022 letter it was probably “much more valuable” than Bed Bath & Beyond’s total market capitalization.
Bed Bath & Beyond closed several locations as part of its early efforts to cut costs.
Cohen’s brief interest in the company: he sold his position with the company in November 2022 without further comment — place Bed Bath & Beyond stocks in the realm of meme stocks, a retail investor-driven phenomenon in which struggling companies garner interest from day traders betting on a long-term revival.
Although now worth less than $1, its shares have risen about 19% in the past 30 days on reports that the company was successfully paying off some of its debt.
