Announced store closures won’t affect Bardstown’s Radio Shack store
By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio
Tuesday, March 14, 2017 — Despite media reports last week that electronics retailer Radio Shack was closing an 187 stores this month as part of its second bankruptcy filing in two years, the local Radio Shack store is still open for business.
Social media reports over the weekend suggested the local Bardstown Radio Shack store was also closing as part of the company’s latest store closure announcement. That information was incorrect.
According to employees of the Bardstown Radio Shack located at 301 Culpepper St., the announced closings only affected the retailer’s corporate-owned retail stores. The local Radio Shack is one of 425 independent dealers stores which were not affected by the closings.
The closings will leave the Fort Worth, Texas-based electronics retailer with approximately 1,300 company-owned stores in operation. As part of its 2015 bankruptcy, the company shuttered approximately 2,400 of its company owned stores.
About 1,850 of RadioShack’s 5,900 employees are expected to be affected by the move.
RadioShack, which was founded in 1921, is owned by General Wireless Operations Inc., which bought the brand after its 2015 bankruptcy. General Wireless is a joint venture of hedge fund Standard General and Sprint.
The first Radio Shack store opened in Boston in 1921, selling ham radios and other radio equipment. Over the years, Radio Shack established itself as a neighborhood destination for loudspeakers, mobile phones, satellite TV, batteries and toys. It also sold the first mass-marketed, fully-assembled PC, the TRS-80, for which a young Bill Gates wrote an operating system before going on to found Microsoft.
-30-
