Centennial-based Shane Co. announced Dec. 21 that it has emerged
from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
“This is a great day for Shane Co.,” founder Tom Shane, the
firm’s commercial pitchman, said in a statement. “At the beginning
of the reorganization, I made a commitment to our vendors,
customers and team members that Shane Co. would pay 100 cents of
every dollar owed to all, and emerge from the proceedings stronger
than ever.”
The largest privately held jeweler in the United States had
filed for protection last year in the wake of a weak luxury-goods
shopping season.
The bankruptcy was considered unusual. Shane notified vendors in
advance that he was stopping payments. For nearly two years, he did
nothing to cut expenses and spent millions to develop a new
inventory-management system.
Shane Co. had listed assets and liabilities of between $100
million and $500 million on the court documents it filed last year.
At the time, the firm owed $26 million to its 20 largest unsecured
creditors.
U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Howard Tallman, who approved the
reorganization plan, called it “the ideal Chapter 11 that you can
have.”
Shane Co., which uses the tag line, “Now, you have a friend in
the diamond business,” operates 20 stores nationwide, including
outlets in Greenwood Village and Westminster.
