David’s Bridal is leaving their Conshohocken headquarters after company sold to investment group
CEO Jim Marcum sat down with The Inquirer to discuss the company’s future in light of its recent sale.
David’s Bridal, the Conshohocken-based budget wedding dress retailer that filed for bankruptcy in April, completed its sale to business development company CION Investment Corp. on Monday. The move allows David’s Bridal to keep open 195 stores and preserve 7,000 jobs nationwide.
CION is “prepared to continue to support David’s and its initiatives as we go forward,” said CEO of David’s Bridal, Jim Marcum, on Thursday.
David’s Bridal says they sell 1 in 4 bridal dresses bought in the country. As the company looks ahead to this next chapter, it will retain its popular brand name, says Marcum. David’s Bridal is also selling its headquarters and looking for a new corporate office in the region.
The Inquirer asked Marcum about what’s next for David’s Bridal in this new phase.
Questions and answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.
You said earlier this year that the company faced a “post-COVID environment and uncertain economic conditions.” What brought the company to this point?
We’re still navigating the impacts of COVID. In the beginning when COVID first hit, David’s Bridal went dark in all stores. Venues were restricted or venues actually could not hold weddings of any size. You had a significant amount of events get deferred from 2020 to 2021 to 2022, which really put a strain on the capacity of the system, of venue availability.
Just the impact of COVID, the cocooning, the lack of dating, and everything like that, kind of created a trough in the engagement business, which is the leading indicator to the dress business.
All of those market factors had been going on for quite a while and then you compound it with economic environments, you compound that with size of venue or wedding, and you compound that with venue availability, and suddenly somebody says, “You know what, we’re just going to do a casual event in the backyard.”
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Do you expect the company to remain headquartered in Conshohocken?
We’ve had a long history in Conshohocken. We do have our corporate office facility on the market for sale. We are going to remain local. There’s so many communities that are very close by that I think are actionable communities, so we’re looking for the best location for our employees.
How many people were laid off this year and will any of them be brought back?
There has been an incredible amount of confusion around WARN notices [which require companies by law to disclose store closures] and layoffs and regulatory requirements. It was early reported in the process that we laid off 9,000 people, which wasn’t true.
We have 12 stores in the state of Pennsylvania — we actually have 15 locations with two distribution centers and the corporate office. We have closed one store. In the end, the layoff in that store is a little over 30 people. We’ve done some layoffs elsewhere throughout the company. In the end, we have closed approximately 100 stores nationwide. Long term, that’ll be a strength for David’s.
Will the company be bringing back any headquarter employees that were laid off in the early rounds in the spring?
Yes, we’re in the process. We already have. There’s a lot of excitement throughout the building right now with people coming back in. We’re back.
How many people are coming back to the corporate office?
We planned to have back 180 to 200. Unfortunately, not everyone will come back. So there’s been some reduction, but we’re optimistic.
David’s Bridal has filed for bankruptcy twice in five years. What steps are you taking to ensure that consumers trust the brand?
When the world shut down and factories were closed, we were able to — because we have our own vertical supply chain — fulfill every one of those dresses. When we had factories shut down in a country, we moved production. We were reproducing dresses and flying them by air. There was an extreme cost to that which led to some of this complexity in our capital structure, but that to us was the premise we had to deliver. Through the bankruptcy, we fulfilled orders.
That’s our goal, and that’s what’s needed.