Wilmington, Del. — The federal bankruptcy court here has given RadioShack’s majority shareholder and lead lender Standard General the OK to make the opening bids for the retailer’s name and best 2,000 or so stores.
RadioShack had picked the hedge fund to act as a stalking-horse bidder under a pre-packaged Chapter 11 plan.
The bidding will start at $200 million for the stores and $20 million for the RadioShack brand when the auction is held March 23. Standard General plans to operate the stores with mobile carrier Sprint.
The court also approved RadioShack’s request to borrow up to $285 million from Standard General in bankruptcy financing.
Separately, GameStop entered bids for 163 RadioShack locations for use by its Spring Mobile subsidiary. The authorized AT&T retailer currently operates about 360 stores and has two months to decide whether it wants the leases.
A separate auction held Wednesday for most of the chain’s 1,100 less-desirable locations drew few bidders beyond GameStop, which agreed to pay $15,000 each for the leases.
