Report: Fortunoff to open six furniture stores

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Report: Fortunoff to open six furniture stores

September 28, 2009

A Houston-based outdoor-furniture retailer has joined a member of the Fortunoff family and two former executives to open six Fortunoff Backyard Stores on Long Island and New Jersey next year.

New York--A Houston-based outdoor-furniture retailer has formed an alliance with a member of the Fortunoff family and two former company executives to bring back the brand's outdoor-furniture stores, Newsday reports.

According to the report, six Fortunoff Backyard Stores are slated to open on Long Island and in New Jersey on Feb. 1.

The Chair King, which has 18 outdoor-furniture stores in Texas, purchased a controlling interest in Furniture Concepts LLC earlier this month, the company formed by the two former Fortunoff executives and a member of the Fortunoff family.

Furniture Concepts owns licensing rights to the Fortunoff brand of outdoor furniture and seasonal products in the United States.

According to the Newsday report, the terms of the deal were not disclosed and neither were specific locations for the stores.

Fortunoff family member David Fortunoff did not immediately respond to request for comment on the report.

Started in 1922 by Max and Clara Fortunoff as a single store in Brooklyn, N.Y., the Fortunoff brand grew over the years to encompass a total of 20 stores in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

The families who operated the business, the Fortunoffs and the Mayrocks, sold the business to two private equity firms in 2005.

Fortunoff filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February 2008, but seemed to be saved when another private equity firm, NRDC Equity Partners, bought it.

But the company filed for bankruptcy again a year later, citing a familiar slate of problems brought on by the economic crisis that hit in September 2008: a lack of liquidity that was magnified by a poor holiday season and weak consumer spending.

Unable to find a buyer, the brand held going-out-of-business sales at its stores in the spring, seemingly spelling the end of Fortunoff.

However, in July, members of the Fortunoff and Mayrock families, who owned and operated Fortunoff for four generations, announced they had bought back all the company's intellectual property, including the Fortunoff name.

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Report: Fortunoff to open six furniture stores

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