HHGregg to close 88 stores, including in Heath

• The HHGregg store at 901 Hebron Road, in Heath, will close by mid-April, the company announced.
• The HHGregg company-wide closings will eliminate of approximately 1,500 positions.

HEATH – HHGregg announced Thursday it plans to close 88 of its weakest stores, including the Heath store at 901 Hebron Road, by mid-April.

The company-wide closings will result in the elimination of approximately 1,500 positions. Current inventory in the stores will be sold during the coming weeks.

Management at the Heath store referred questions to the company's corporate office in Indianapolis. A telephone message left for a corporate spokeswoman had not been returned by presstime. It is not known how many employees work at the local store.

HHGregg opened at the Heath location in June 1999, a year after Sun TV went bankrupt and vacated the 35,000-square foot building. The HHGregg store opened with 40 to 50 employees.

Sun TV opened Oct. 22, 1996, after the historic Davis-Shai House was moved from the Hebron Road site to its current location behind Walmart on Central Parkway.

“We are strategically exiting markets and stores that are not financially profitable for us,” HHGregg CEO Robert Riesbeck said in a statement. “This is a proactive decision to streamline our store footprint in the markets where we have been, and will continue to be, important to our customers, vendor partners and communities."

The announced store closings include three other Ohio locations: Mansfield; Fairlawn-Akron; and Tri-County-Springdale. The closings, which total one-fourth of all its locations, come days after the New York Stock Exchange delisted HHGregg for failing to meet the minimum listing requirement. Bloomberg last week reported HHGregg is preparing to file for bankruptcy as soon as this month.

HHGregg has lost market share to online retailers while also having to compete against traditional big-box stores such as Best Buy. The company in recent months has tried to reinvent itself as a high-end appliance store.

HHGregg, which has lost money for the last two years, recently reported a dismal holiday shopping season. Sales at stores that have been opened for at least a year declined by 22.2 percent during the most recent fiscal quarter, which included the holidays.

HHGregg in mid-February hired Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. and Miller Buckfire & Co. to find ways to "improve liquidity and return to profitability."

The store closings will bring HHGregg's footprint down to 132 stores, which Riesbeck said "will continue to be a dominant force in appliances, electronics and home furnishings."

HHGregg will close stores in 15 states: Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

“We have determined that the economics of the affected locations will not allow us to achieve our overall goal of becoming a profitable company again," Riesbeck said. "After scrutinizing our real estate portfolio, we have identified a number of underperforming stores, as well as store locations that are no longer strong shopping destinations due to changes in the local retail shopping landscape.”

Advocate Reporter Kent Mallett contributed to this story.