Report: Radio Shack to close its doors; Sprint to lease up to half of the stores

Radio Shack, the struggling national electronics chain known more for plugs, cables, wires and batteries than the smartphones they were also selling, is about to close its doors and file bankruptcy. Bloomberg is reporting that the company is working on a deal that would have Sprint take over the lease on as many as half of the shuttered stores.

The stores controlled by Sprint would carry the carrier's name, according to anonymous sources. But no deal has been signed yet, and alternative plans have been discussed. There have been talks about co-branding the stores that Sprint plans on leasing, and other companies could decide to bid for the entire chain, thus keeping the Radio Shack name alive. Among those companies is China's Sanpower Group, the firm that took Brookstone out of bankruptcy.

Radio Shack currently has 4000 company owned locations in the U.S. and sources say that Sprint is interested in leasing 1300 to 2000 of those stores. The electronics retailer started life as a mail order company back in 1921, catering to amateur radio users. The chain took off in 1962 when promoter Charles Tandy purchased the company. Lately, the company has tried to cash in on the popularity of smartphones, but could not sufficiently profit from selling them.

source: Bloomberg

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