Toys "R" Us
Toys "R" Us is an American toy, clothing, and baby product retailer that was founded in April 1948 by Charles Lazarus in Washington, D.C.
The retailer initially began as Children's Supermart, selling furniture until it refocused itself as Toys "R" Us in June 1957. By the end of the 1970s, Toys "R" Us had opened locations across the United States, followed by another major growth in the 1980s to become one of the U.S.'s leading toy retailers. In the mid-1980s, it expanded internationally and established Canadian and British divisions.
In September 2017, Toys "R" Us filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. and Canada. In June 2018, Toys "R" Us closed its remaining 200 stores after entering bankruptcy; however, certain international divisions outside of the United States continued.
In January 2019, the global Toys "R" Us intellectual property was transferred to Tru Kids, Inc. In August 2021, Tru Kids announced that Toys "R" Us would be opening over 400 stores within Macy's starting in 2022. A few new standalone stores would open, starting late in 2021. The flagship store is located in New Jersey at the American Dream shopping and entertainment complex. A second flagship store was opened inside the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, in November 2023.
History
Origins and 20th century
In April 1948, Charles P. Lazarus founded a baby-furniture retailer, Children's Supermart, in Washington, D.C. during the postwar baby boom; the store's site at 2461 18th St NW later became Madam's Organ Blues Bar. The store was acquired in 1966 by Interstate Department Stores, Inc.The focus of the store changed in June 1957, and the first Toys "R" Us, dedicated exclusively to toys rather than furniture, was opened by Lazarus in Rockville, Maryland. Lazarus also designed and stylized the Toys "R" Us logo, which featured a backwards "R" to give the impression that a child wrote it. The store chain grew successfully and built a brand which was recognizable to many children born from the 1960s to the 1990s, and it shared in the success of the birth of popular culture successes of action figures, dolls, video games, and ultimately the co-branded FAO series, as the higher-end FAO Schwarz stores folded.
In July 1996, Toys "R" Us introduced a new store format, Concept 2000, where stores featured blue facades with yellow-lined windows. The first store with this format was in Raritan, New Jersey.
21st century
The board of directors installed John Eyler as CEO in May 2000. Eyler launched a plan to remodel and re-launch the chain. Blaming market pressures, Toys "R" Us considered splitting its toy and baby businesses. On March 17, 2005, a consortium of Bain Capital Partners LLC, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Vornado Realty Trust announced a $6.6 billion leveraged buyout of the company. Public stock closed for the last time on July 21, 2005, at $26.75—a 63% increase since when it first announced that the company was put up for sale. Toys "R" Us became a privately owned entity after the buyout. The company still files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as required by its debt agreements. Toys "R" Us announced plans for an IPO on May 28, 2010, but canceled them on March 29, 2013, citing market conditions.In December 2013, eight days before Christmas, Toys "R" Us announced their stores in the United States would stay open for 87 hours straight. The flagship store of the retailer in Times Square was open for 24 hours a day from December 1 to 24, to cater to tourists. The announcement came after snow and rain caused a nearly 9 percent year-over-year decline in US store foot traffic. This move also pushed the retailer to hire an additional 45,000 seasonal workers to cater to the demand of the extended store hours. Since the toy business is highly seasonal, more than 40% of the company's sales come in during the last quarter of the year.
In 2014, Toys "R" Us announced its "TRU Transformation" strategy, which concentrated on efforts to fix foundational issues affecting future growth, including making stores less cluttered, improving the customer experience, clearer pricing strategies and promotions, and tighter integration of its retail and online businesses. In 2015, the company launched the first of a new concept store called the "Toy Lab" in Freehold, New Jersey. The new layout provided more space for interactive exhibits and areas to play with new toys before purchase. This concept has since been expanded to stores in California, Delaware, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania.
Bankruptcy
On September 18, 2017, Toys "R" Us, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, stating the move would give it flexibility to deal with $5 billion in long-term debt by borrowing $2 billion to pay suppliers for the upcoming holiday season and invest in operations. The company has not had an annual profit since 2013. It reported a net loss of US$164 million in the quarter ending April 29, 2017. It lost US$126 million in the same period in the prior year. It had been paying US$400 million per year to service its debt, which prevented it from investing in improvements to in-store experiences to compete with Amazon and Walmart. Although the "retail apocalypse" was a factor, some analysts cited that the rapid increase in debt occurred under its private equity ownership. The company was reported to have a total workforce of 64,000 in September 2017.It was initially stated that only the US and Canadian operations would be affected, and that its brick-and-mortar stores and online sales sites would continue to operate. In January 2018, the company announced it would liquidate and close up to 182 of its stores in the US as part of its restructuring, as well as convert up to 12 stores into co-branded Toys "R" Us and Babies "R" Us stores.
On February 28, 2018, it was reported that the company was exploring retaining its stronger Canadian operations, and the divestiture of some of its corporate-owned stores to franchises. Toys "R" Us Inc. later announced that all US locations would be closed.
On March 15, 2018, Toys "R" Us received approval from the bankruptcy court to liquidate its stores. There were buyers interested in acquiring groups of stores to use as showrooms, as well as others interested in acquiring the chain's brand and associated intellectual property. The company indicated in filings that the Canadian operations were profitable, and desired to preserve the operations of the 82-store chain through a sale. MGA Entertainment had made an offer to acquire the Canadian operations. MGA Entertainment CEO Isaac Larian attempted to raise $200 million through investments and public crowdfunding to purchase at least 400 of the US locations.
Liquidation sales began on March 23, 2018. The chain's online store shut down on March 29, redirecting visitors to information on the liquidation and closures. On April 24, 2018, it was announced that the Canadian division would be sold to Fairfax Financial for approximately $234 million, and would continue to operate the locations under the Toys "R" Us name. Fairfax stated that it was potentially interested in purchasing US locations as an extension of these Canadian operations.
On April 13, a bid was made by Isaac Larian to buy 356 Toys "R" Us stores for $890 million, but was rejected on April 17 and was fully scrapped on April 23.
On June 29, 2018, Toys "R" Us permanently closed all of its remaining US locations, after 70 years of operations. In early July 2018, it was reported that unknown benefactors had bought all of the remaining stock of two locations in North Carolina so they could be donated to charity.
In November 2018, Fortune noted that the absence of the retailer during the 2018 holiday season represented a chunk of toy sales from which other retailers could benefit. Party supply retailer Party City capitalized on the closures by establishing temporary pop-up stores under the branding Toy City, some of which filled vacancies left by Toys "R" Us locations.
Restructuring, Tru Kids, Inc., WHP Global, second restructuring, and third restructuring
On October 1, 2018, the company issued a bankruptcy court filing which stated that it would no longer auction off its intellectual property, since its controlling lender planned to " the business behind the Toys 'R' Us and Babies 'R' Us brand names" with a focus on maintaining existing licensing agreements and establishing new retail opportunities. The company evaluated that selling its brand at auction " not reasonably likely to yield a superior alternative."At the Toy Industry Association's Fall Toy Preview, the company unveiled plans for a preliminary venture to be known as Geoffrey's Toy Box, a wholesale store-within-a-store concept that the company planned to deploy in time for the holiday shopping season. The company planned to revive the Toys "R" Us and Babies "R" Us brands in the future. In November 2018, it was announced that grocery market chain Kroger would add toy displays under the Geoffrey's Toy Box brand to some of its locations, to sell selections of Toys "R" Us private-label products. The brand operates under Geoffrey LLC, an intellectual property holding company within Toys "R" Us.
On January 20, 2019, the company emerged from bankruptcy as Tru Kids.
Relaunch
As of June 21, 2019, the company planned to open new stores in the US slated to be 10,000 square feet, roughly a third of the size of the big box brand that closed in 2018. On November 27, 2019, Toys "R" Us opened a retail store at Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey. On December 7, 2019, a second location was opened at The Galleria in Houston, Texas.On October 8, 2019, the company relaunched the Toys "R" Us website, which would feature a focus on resources and videos highlighting popular toys. The site was established in partnership with Target, with users being redirected to Target.com to place their orders. In 2020, the agreement lapsed, and Amazon replaced Target as the site's fulfillment partner.
In 2021, as a result of financial losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the only two US stores once again closed down. The Houston location closed on January 15, 2021, and the Paramus location closed on January 26, 2021. The company stated that they made a strategic decision to pivot their store strategy, so they can look for new stores and platforms that will offer better traffic and that they continue to invest in channels where customers will want to experience their brand.
On March 15, 2021, it was announced that brand management company WHP Global acquired a controlling interest in Tru Kids, which is the parent company of the Toys "R Us, Babies R Us and Geoffrey the Giraffe brands. Going forward WHP will be managing Tru Kids business, and help guiding its expansion. In North America WHP plans to open Toys "R" Us stores, again — ideally ahead of the holiday season and could come on various formats to include flagships, pop-ups, airport locations or mini stores inside other retailers' shops. WHP has not yet set a number of locations it plans to open in the United States. WHP is backed by a $350 million equity commitment from funds that are managed by Oaktree Capital Management. Financial terms of the deal have yet to be disclosed.
On August 19, 2021, WHP announced a new shift in branding by partnering with Macy's to sell toys on the retailer's website and open store-within-a-store locations at 400 department store locations.
On December 16, 2021, Toys "R" Us opened a two-story flagship store at a size of in the American Dream Meadowlands mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
On August 7, 2022, Toys "R" Us opened new locations in nine states: California, Georgia, New Jersey, Illinois, Nevada, Louisiana, New York, Maryland, and Missouri. These stores are located inside Macy's stores and range from. The company opened a store in every Macy's location in the United States by October 15, 2022, just in time for the holiday season.
A second flagship store was opened inside the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota in November 2023.
On September 29, 2023, WHP announced their intention to open 24 new physical stores in the United States. These stores would be stand-alone locations and would begin to open in 2024. WHP also announced smaller stores that would be located in airports and cruise ships. The first of these smaller stores opened in November 2023, and is located in Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.
Two additional flagship stores were opened during the 2024 holiday season, one at Harlem Irving Plaza in Norridge, Illinois, and a second at Tanger Outlets in San Marcos, Texas.
On June 5, 2025, only 6 years to the day of the partnership, the new ASX-listed Australian arm went back into voluntary administration after years of losses. The former subsidiary was previously liquidated by administrators in 2018 and was taken up by Hobby Warehouse as an online store from 2019. On July 31, 2025, the company was taken over by Directed Electronics Australia in a deed of company arrangement and removed from the ASX.
On September 16, 2025, the company announced plans to open ten new flagship stores and 20 seasonal holiday shops by the end of 2025. The first flagship would open at Chicago Premium Outlets in Aurora, Illinois on September 20, 2025. The locations of all twenty seasonal holiday shops and eight of the ten flagship stores were revealed on October 16, 2025. The second new flagship store was opened in Camarillo Premium Outlets in Camarillo, California on October 25, 2025, with the third following a week later at Jordan Creek Town Center in West Des Moines, Iowa on November 1.
Additional flagship stores are expected to open in Arundel Mills in Hanover, Maryland, Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska, Denver Premium Outlets in Thornton, Colorado, Tanger Outlets Deer Park in Deer Park, New York, and Towne East Square in Witchita, Kansas by the end of 2025.