Seffner, FL, August 18--Rooms To Go Inc.'s president Jeff Seaman said Wednesday he planned to finalize a deal to buy the 130-year-old Rhodes and said the future of Rhodes stores will be decided within two months, according to the Florida Times-Union.
Rooms To Go's $45.8 million bid for 50 Rhodes stores was approved by a U.S. bankruptcy court judge Monday, Seaman said. But no final decisions have been made about store closings in Jacksonville or elsewhere.
"It really depends, we're not sure yet," Seaman said. "We'll probably keep one or two of the stores in Jacksonville."
Seaman said the Rhodes deal was mostly driven by Seffner-based Rooms To Go's plan to expand to Northwest Florida, where Rhodes already operates three stores.
"We wanted to get into the Panhandle as fast as possible," he said. "This just made sense."
Privately held Rooms To Go was founded in 1990 by Seaman and his father, Morty, after selling another furniture company, Seaman Furniture. Rooms To Go now operates 100 stores in the Southeast and reported sales of $1.4 billion in 2003, according to Hoover's.
Atlanta-based Rhodes was started by Amos G. Rhodes in the late 1800s in Atlanta, but has had four different owners from 1987 to 1999. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2004 after reported losses of about $19 million in 2003, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
The company operates 65 stores. Many of the stores in the Midwest will close, according to published reports.
