Parent company's economic distress doomed 120-year Badcock furniture

A Texas retailer crushed by inflation, interest rates and more bought a 120-year-old Polk County business in a Hail Mary move. It didn't work out.

  • By Louis Llovio
  • | 5:00 a.m. August 22, 2024
  • | 0 Free Articles Remaining!
Babcock & More Home Furniture distribution center on Kid Ellis Road in Mulberry, Florida, on Aug. 14, 2024.
Babcock & More Home Furniture distribution center on Kid Ellis Road in Mulberry, Florida, on Aug. 14, 2024.
Photo by Calvin Knight
  • Tampa Bay-Lakeland
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In mid-December of last year, a week before Christmas, Texas retailer Conn’s Inc. sent out a press release ahead of its quarterly earnings report.

The suburban Houston furniture and appliance merchant announced it had bought the more than century old Polk County-based W.S. Badcock LLC.

 

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