One of our largest clients – McNally Robinson Booksellers – announced they are going into bankruptcy protection. The company has been struck with some hard times with rising costs from opening a new store at Polo Park Mall (Winnipeg) and another new location in Ontario. According to McNally the Ontario location (just outside of Toronto) experienced serious problems with the developer of the mall. According to Paul McNally, they did a poor job of getting other retailers in the mall and offered poor signage which caused a lot of issues for the book store. The news is a little misleading at this point if you ask me as it seems as though McNally is closing its doors for good. That is not the case, they have gone into Bankruptcy protection and are still operating 2 of their stores, one in Winnipeg (Grant Park) and one in Saskatoon. In addition they have full intention to maintain their e-commerce website as they feel it is an efficient method to sell books and certainly the wave of the future. Many companies go into Bankruptcy protection and then come out with a plan and continue to be very successful. Recently we were interviewed by CBC’s Wab Kinew regarding McNally. The clip is at the 10 minute mark of the segment, Click here to see the news broadcast.
Thanks and have a happy new year.
