Ex-Apple exec Ron Johnson’s Enjoy Technology files for bankruptcy

Get pleasure from Know-how, a retail startup founded by previous Apple and J.C. Penney exec Ron Johnson, submitted for Chapter 11 personal bankruptcy protection on Thursday, mere months immediately after it produced its inventory market place debut.

The company’s liquidity has dwindled whilst its business has experienced from staffing shortages. Take pleasure in, which operates mobile retail stores, went general public in October by a merger with a specific objective acquisition company, or SPAC.

Take pleasure in claimed in a filing that it programs to sell its belongings in the United States to the technological innovation mend corporation Asurion.

Asurion has agreed to supply $55 million of funding so that Love can proceed to work as it reorganizes in individual bankruptcy safety from collectors, the submitting reported. Get pleasure from expects Asurion’s bid will be enough to pay out all of its secured and unsecured lenders.

Enjoy and Asurion failed to instantly reply to requests for remark.

Johnson, who is also CEO of Love, founded the corporation in 2014. He is finest identified for aiding to create Apple’s retail business enterprise and for attempting to turn all-around the J.C. Penney department retail store chain, albeit unsuccessfully. He was there from 2011 to 2013, a period of time in which his approach alienated the retailer’s core buyers.

Last calendar year, amid a frenzy of SPAC discounts, Appreciate went general public by way of a merger with the blank check out firm Marquee Raine Acquisition Corp. At the time, the transaction valued the blended enterprise at an company value of around $1.2 billion.

But a lot more a short while ago, Enjoy was hurt partly as SPAC buyers started to get again their cash and the small business was still left with fewer income, court filings demonstrate.

Love lists only $523,000 in hard cash on hand. The corporation reported it has by now begun laying off about 400 U.K.-based mostly personnel, or around 18% of its overall workforce.

Enjoy counted venture capital firms like Kleiner Perkins and Andreessen Horowitz as original backers. The business enterprise started off to examine strategic alternatives this past spring, according to the filing.

Its shares, which trade less than 20 cents apiece, are down extra than 96% this yr, which include Thursday’s losses.