FORMERLY PE OWNED
Forever 21
Includes Forever21
fast fashion · Los Angeles, CA
- PE Firm
- Authentic Brands Group / Simon Property / Brookfield
- Year Acquired
- 2020
PE bought it out of one bankruptcy, separated the brand from the stores, and bankrupted the stores again five years later.
What Happened
- Authentic Brands Group, Simon Property Group, and Brookfield Asset Management bought Forever 21 out of its first bankruptcy in 2020 for roughly $81 million
- ABG took all the intellectual property (brand name, trademarks, licensing rights) while the retail operations were dumped into a separate shell company, eventually Catalyst Brands
- The shell company lost over $400 million in three fiscal years, including $150 million in fiscal 2024 alone, while ABG collected licensing fees regardless of store performance
- Second bankruptcy filed March 2025, and all 354 U.S. stores closed by spring 2025. ABG keeps the brand to license forever while thousands of store workers lost their jobs
The Damage Done
- All 354 U.S. stores closed by spring 2025 — thousands of mostly young, hourly retail workers lost their jobs
- Forever 21 blamed competition from Shein and Temu, but the structural problem was a PE ownership model designed to extract licensing fees whether stores survived or not
- The brand lives on as a licensed name slapped on products by other companies — but the actual stores where teens shopped are gone
- Customers with gift cards, store credits, and pending returns during the liquidation faced the familiar bankruptcy refrain: you're not getting that money back
Sources
- Forever 21 bankruptcy: All US stores are going out of business — CNN Business(2025-03-17)
- Forever 21 closing stores bankruptcy 2025 — Axios(2025-03-17)
- Forever 21 files for second bankruptcy, blames Shein and Temu — CNBC(2025-03-17)
- Forever 21 blames latest bankruptcy on competition, Temu and Shein — Retail Dive(2025-03-17)
- Forever 21 reaches $81 million deal to sell its retail business — CNBC(2020-02-03)
- Forever 21 gift cards expired, returns no longer accepted — WFTV / Cox Media(2025-04-15)