NEW YORK — Standard General, the company that owns what’s left of RadioShack’s stores, will get to keep its name as well.
The hedge fund and former lead lender bought the chain’s brand and other intellectual property for $26.2 million last night following a two-day auction here, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The winning bid will allow the RadioShack trademark to remain on the 1,700 stores that Standard General acquired in an earlier fire sale, and to share billing with Sprint in about 1,440 of those locations.
Standard General also gets RadioShack’s websites and private-label brands as part of the package, as well as its controversial customer database, including some 65 million customer names and physical addresses. The hedge fund reportedly worked with several states attorney general to allay their privacy concerns.
The bankruptcy auctions together have raised enough cash to pay back most senior lenders in full, lawyers told the Journal — save for Salus Capital Partners. The former RadioShack term lender, whose loan was secured by the chain’s assets, repeatedly blocked former CEO Joe Magnacca’s attempts to radically reduce the store count in order to cut costs, trim losses and free up capital.
His hopes for consolidating the chain’s 4,100 stores down to the 1,700 best-performing locations were ultimately achieved through bankruptcy.
