Tweeter (store)

Tweeter, formerly Tweeter Etc. and Tweeter Home Entertainment, was a specialty consumer electronics retailer providing mid and high end electronic equipment, including flat panel TVs, plasma TVs, car radios, home theater systems, GPSs and more. It also focused much of its business on custom installation of electronics for homes and automobiles.

This article is about the defunct retail chain. For the loudspeaker driver, see Tweeter. For social networking site of similar name, see Twitter. For other uses, see Tweeter (disambiguation).
"Douglas TV" redirects here. For TV topics "Douglas", see Douglas (disambiguation).

Tweeter
TypeLimited liability company (Tweeter Opco)
Corporation (TWTR Inc.)
IndustryConsumer electronics retail
Founded1972 (Boston)
FounderSandy Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg
Defunct2008
FateBankruptcy
HeadquartersCanton, MA
Number of locations
100 (at the time of closure)
Tweeter store in Durham, North Carolina.

The company had more than 100 stores in 18 U.S. states, mostly along the east coast, but also including Illinois, Texas, California, Nevada and Arizona, operating under the names Tweeter, HiFi Buys, Showcase Home Entertainment and Sound Advice.

The company was founded by Sandy and Michael Bloomberg who opened the first store in the Boston area in 1972, and the company quickly expanded throughout New England.[1]

Tweeter continued expanding largely through acquisitions, the first of these being Bryn Mawr Stereo in 1996.[2][3] It then added Atlanta-based HiFi Buys in 1997,[4][5] San Diego based DOW Stereo/Video in 1999,[6][7] Chicago-based United Audio Center[8][9] and Douglas TV stores[10][11][12] in 2000 and Florida-based Sound Advice in 2001.[13][14] These acquisitions gave Tweeter an instant presence in the Southeast and Midwest during a booming housing market.

In March 2007, Tweeter announced the closing of 49 stores and the layoffs of 650 employees, and shuttered all of its stores in California and most of its stores in the Southeast.[15] In June 2007 Tweeter Home Entertainment filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and its assets were purchased by Schultze Asset Management at auction on July 13, 2007, after a failed reorganization plan.[16] Schultze reformed the company as Tweeter Opco LLC.

After an attempt to revive the company, Tweeter Opco filed for Chapter 11 on November 5, 2008.[16] Prior to filing the company had started going out of business sales in anticipation of the holiday season. However, a dispute among creditors regarding operating cash to continue the sales forced the closure of all stores on December 3, 2008, the firing of all 600 employees and the company filed a conversion of its Chapter 11 reorganization to a Chapter 7 liquidation.[17] Customers reported paid goods and deposits were part of frozen assets[18] which eventually forced them to file as creditors in the liquidation.[19]

TWTR Inc.

Following the original 2007 Chapter 11 filing and sale of assets to Schultze, the original Tweeter company (now a shell company) remained active, having been renamed TWTR Inc..[20]

On October 4, 2013, more than six years after selling its assets (and almost five years after the Tweeter chain shut down for good), shares of TWTR Inc. (at that point still listed under "TWTRQ") were trading for as much as 1500% above the previous day's closing price (US$0.15 vs $0.007). It ultimately closed at $0.051 (a gain of over 684%), after trading was halted at 12:42pm EDT. Twitter, Inc. had released its preliminary initial public offering filings the previous day which revealed it was planning to use the ticker symbol "TWTR" (Tweeter's ticker symbol before its original bankruptcy filing), which apparently led to confusion among some investors.[21] Shortly after the incident, the company's ticker symbol was changed to "THEGQ".

References
  1. "Archived Company "About Us" Page". Archived from the original on October 11, 2007.
  2. "Tweeter Etc. Purchasing Bryn Mawr Stereo". HFN The Weekly Newspaper for the Home FurnishingNetwork. April 8, 1996 – via HighBeam Research.
  3. DeWolf, Rose (May 17, 1996). "Bryn Mawr Stereo Stores Sold". Philadelphia Daily News. Archived from the original on January 21, 2016.
  4. Murray, Brendan (March 17, 1997). "Boston chain's HiFi buy may be sealed in spring". Atlanta Business Journal.
  5. Mccloy, Andrew P. (March 17, 1997). "Tweeter etc. parent company acquires Atlanta-based HiFi Buys". Boston Business Journal.
  6. "Tweeter to Acquire DOW Stereo/Video". Stereophile. May 23, 1999.
  7. "Tweeter Home Entertainment Group Announces an Agreement to Acquire DOW Stereo/Video, Inc. in San Diego, California". Business Wire. May 18, 1999. Archived from the original on December 20, 2014. Retrieved December 2, 2014 – via The Free Library.
  8. Iverson, Jon (January 23, 2000). "Tweeter to Acquire United Audio Centers in Chicago". Stereophile. Archived from the original on December 20, 2014.
  9. Baeb, Eddie (February 7, 2000). "New owner likely to grow United Audio". Crain's Chicago Business.
  10. "Douglas TV Purchased For $5.7 Million". Chicago Tribune. August 4, 2000.
  11. "Tweeter Completes Douglas TV Purchase". TWICE. October 2000. Archived from the original on September 27, 2013.
  12. "Tweeter Home Entertainment Group Announces an Agreement in Principle to Acquire Douglas TV, the Big Screen Store, A Four-Store Chain Located in Chicago". Business Wire. August 3, 2000. Archived from the original on December 20, 2014. Retrieved December 2, 2014 – via The Free Library.
  13. Pounds, Marcia Heroux (June 5, 2001). "Sound Advice Agrees To Buyout". Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel.
  14. Wolf, Alan (June 11, 2001). "Tweeter Group To Acquire Sound Advice". TWICE.
  15. Del Colliano, Jerry (March 26, 2007). "Tweeter To Close 49 Locations". Audio|Video Revolution. Archived from the original on October 12, 2007.
  16. Pardy, Sasha M. (November 7, 2008). "Tweeter Files Bankruptcy Again, Closing 94 Stores". CoStar Retail News.
  17. Sawczuk, Maria Aprile (February 19, 2009). "Are the Days of Knights Over? Lack of Liquidity Stymies Chapter 11 Cases". The Journal of Corporate Renewal. Turnaround Management Association.
  18. "Tweeter Closes Suddenly, Stuns Workers, Customers". WBZ-TV. Boston. December 3, 2008. Archived from the original on December 4, 2008.
  19. Reidy, Chris (December 18, 2008). "Bankruptcy trustee: Tweeter stores won't reopen". The Boston Globe.
  20. "Current Report (Form 8-K)". TWTR Inc. Securities and Exchange Commission. February 8, 2008. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
  21. Kovach, Steve (October 4, 2013). "A Stock Called 'TWTRQ' Was Up As Much As 1,500% Because People Thought It Was Twitter". Business Insider. Retrieved October 4, 2013.
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