Two brand management firms submitted the highest bid for the assets of the Salt Life apparel business at a court auction, but they have not indicated plans for the retail chain.
Salt Life, founded in Jacksonville Beach in 2003, operates 28 retail stores. Parent company Delta Apparel Inc. filed a Chapter 11 reorganization petition June 30 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.
The Salt Life Food Shack restaurants are not owned by Delta and are not part of the reorganization. The oceanfront Salt restaurant in Jacksonville Beach, which closed over Labor Day weekend, is not related to Salt Life.
As part of the Chapter 11 plan, Delta put the Salt Life apparel assets up for sale in a court auction.
Iconix International Inc. and Hilco Merchant Resources Inc. submitted a joint bid of $38.74 million to acquire the assets at an Aug. 27 court auction.
The bid is subject to court approval at a Sept. 5 hearing.
New York-based Iconix describes itself on its website as “the world’s premier brand management company and owner of a diversified portfolio of strong global consumer brands across fashion, sports, entertainment and home.”
It shows 29 sports, fashion and home brands including Danskin, Starter, Candie’s, Joe Boxer, London Fog, Ocean Pacific and Fieldcrest.
Northbrook, Illinois-based Hilco’s website says it “specializes in the acquisition and re-positioning of under-leveraged iconic consumer and retail brands and/or brand IP.”
Iconix and Hilco have not made any public statements about their plans but documents for their bid filed in court included procedures for store closing sales.
When Delta filed for Chapter 11, it also filed notices under the Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification Act saying its 15 Florida stores could close if no buyer was found.
The notice for Salt Life’s flagship store in Jacksonville Beach said it has eight employees.
Duluth, Georgia-based Delta acquired Salt Life for $37 million in 2013.
The Salt Life Food Shack restaurants in Jacksonville Beach, St. Augustine and Fernandina Beach have separate ownership groups that license the brand, and have never been owned by Delta.
Besides Salt Life, the company sells apparel under the Delta and Soffe brands.
Delta’s most recent financial report, before the bankruptcy filing, showed an adjusted net loss of $24.2 million for the six months ended March 31, with sales falling 27% to $158.9 million.
Salt Life’s sales fell 12% to $25.9 million.
Delta also operated a business called DTG2Go that provided direct-to-garment digital print services for other companies.
The company closed that business in June, before the Chapter 11 filing.
One of its DTG2Go customers was Fanatics Inc., the sports merchandise giant founded in 1995 with a store in the Orange Park Mall and now headquartered in New York.
Fanatics participated in the Aug. 27 auction, bidding $257,834 to acquire 1.289 million units of blank shirts with a Fanatics label held by DTG2Go. That was the only bid for those assets.
When Delta filed its Chapter 11 petition, it said it had a “Stalking Horse” bid of $28.03 million for Salt Life by an affiliate of Birmingham, Alabama-based Forager Capital Management.
FCM did increase its offer at the auction but was outbid by Iconix and Hilco.
If those firms don’t complete the acquisition, FCM has a backup bid of $37 million in place.
Jacksonville-based Pinsly Railroad Co. announced Aug. 28 it agreed to acquire Hondo Railway LLC, a short line railroad company in Hondo, Texas, near San Antonio.
Pinsly operates six short line railroads after acquiring four other companies in the past two years.
Hondo provides freight customers with interchange access to the BNSF and Union Pacific rail networks, Pinsly said.
“This railroad and its team are a great addition to the Pinsly family of roads and will further diversify our commodity mix as well as geographic location,” Pinsly CEO Ryan Ratledge said in a news release.
Terms of the deal were not announced.
After reaching agreements covering more than half of its union labor force the previous week, CSX Corp. announced contract agreements Aug. 30 with two more unions: the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers & Helpers and the Transportation Communications Union.
The Jacksonville-based railroad company has been working to reach new labor agreements with its unions before the current contracts run out at the end of this year.
“The latest tentative agreements build upon the momentum that we have created alongside our union partners and allows us to solidify the foundation at CSX where every employee feels valued and empowered,” CEO Joe Hinrichs said in a news release.
Like the previously announced agreements, the latest five-year contracts are subject to approval by union members.