Zulily ABC
Once valued at $4 billion, Zulily ABC was an e-commerce company headquartered in Seattle, WA. The company had two 700,000+ square foot warehouses located in Nevada and Ohio that held over 1.6 million in total units of product and extensive conveyor and racking inventory systems.
Scope of Work
Douglas Wilson Companies was able to quickly identify four categories of recovery: a) physical inventory, b) mechanical, racking and equipment, c) IP assets, and d) interest in a large lawsuit against Amazon, a prominent e-commerce rival that had the potential for an extremely large claim.
Despite a series of challenges, mainly due to the company owing tens of millions of dollars to important vendors, DWC was able to successfully liquidate all physical inventory within a minimal 3.5 month period. Further, DWC was also able to create a bidding war for the IP assets which resulted in a recovery nine times the originally estimated value. Lastly, DWC worked with the relevant landlords to obtain mutually beneficial agreements allowing the liquidation to be carried out in an orderly fashion maximizing the recovery for the estate.
On the other side of the equation, DWC was able to collect, organize and notify nearly 600,000 creditors of the estate within a 30-day period. The creditor claims process remains ongoing, however, it has already resulted in the review of over $60M worth of claims.
Resolution
This project remains ongoing, however, DWC has already completed the sale of the company’s IP, physical inventory, and mechanical and equipment assets resulting in over $10M of value – with additional assets remaining to be liquidated.
Resources
Read the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of Zuliy’s liquidation announcement: https://www.wsj.com/articles/online-retailer-zulily-liquidating-in-california-state-proceedings-384e72e4
Read USA Today’s Coverage of the Zulily announcement: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/retail/2023/12/27/zulily-out-of-business/72036684007/