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Tweeter abruptly shut; workers fired

PETER TOBIA / Staff Photographer

From Staff and Wire Reports

Posted: December 04, 2008

Tweeter, a national electronics chain that entered the Philadelphia market in 1996 by buying high-end rival Bryn Mawr Stereo, abruptly converted its bankruptcy case to Chapter 7 liquidation Tuesday. It then closed its 70 stores and fired more than 600 employees.

The chain had been set to shut its doors for good this weekend.

Employees said they were still owed vacation time, at least one week's pay, and bonuses that were promised as part of the liquidation sale. They also said customers were not able to pick up merchandise they had already purchased.

Bryn Mawr's first store was opened in 1946 by podiatrist Arthur Briskin as Bryn Mawr Radio & Television, on Lancaster Avenue.

When it was purchased by the Massachusetts company, Bryn Mawr Stereo had annual sales of $35 million and employed 170 people in 13 stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. Analysts at the time said the combination made sense because the two companies had similar approaches.

The Bryn Mawr Stereo name died in 2001. The stores became Tweeter on the same day that the Waterfront Entertainment Center in Camden became the Tweeter Center at the Waterfront. This year, the Tweeter Center became the Susquehanna Bank Center.

The owner of the Tweeter chain, Schultze Asset Management, shut it down Tuesday and filed for Chapter 7 after it paid off millions of dollars to the largest secured creditor, Wells Fargo & Co. Schultze, a New York investment firm that had also lent money to Tweeter, was the second-biggest creditor and decided against putting additional money into the company to cover expenses to wind down the operations.

Schultze, which bought Tweeter out of its first bankruptcy in July 2007 for $38 million, did not return calls seeking comment.

In its Chapter 7 filing, Tweeter requested $900,000 to be put in a fund for unpaid wages, commissions, and payroll taxes for employees.

Without the use of Schultze's cash collateral, "the debtors," the filing said, "cannot continue to operate under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code."