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I am not sure anything COULD have been done. First, look at the cost structure - lease for an 'A' location (high traffic, high end visibility) retail big boxes are running from $22 to $25 / sq ft/ yr. These stores were 50k +. Leases for warehouse storage space is $3-5/ sq. ft. by comparison. Thats over $1 million per store. per year. And if you keep open a store in a non-A location, that store's sales will be 30-40% less than an A location. Sure you save $500k a year in lease, but it costs you $2-3 million in sales. These are costs Amazon or Wal-Mart don't have to compete with - Wal-Mart can increase/decrease the space needed for toys at will inside their stores - so the cost is variable based on demand (4th quarter demand is 1.5-2x other quarters in every retail I have been in, I can't imagine the toy market's multiple- Financials last 2 years shows it to be around 2.5x - $2 billion 1-3 Qtrs, and a $4.5 billion 4th.) Looking at their financials - not a good sign. They had reduced prices to the point where they were carrying a sub 33% margin (Sales - COGS). This was pretty consistent for the 2016-2017 period. SGA costs alone were about 33%, but drop to only 20% in the 4th. So, running the stores (marketing, ads, cashiers, managers,. stockers, etc. plus corporate costs ate up all of the profits from Qtrs 1-3, leaving 100% of yearly results coming from that 11-13% profit in the 4th. So, roughly $470 million to cover all other costs outside of inventory and SGA - Taxes, Leases, Leasehold improvements, facilities management, construction, interest. Carrying about $3 billion in inventory at any times, sales of $10 billion/year. That's only 3 turns. That's terrible,. They need at least 12 turns a year. So, as a consultant, what options would I offer? Well, at this point - I see two major hurdles - Inventory is too high, needs to be streamlined. Basically, more of what sells, less of what doesn't. Simple, eh? The problem is the stores themselves - if you have a 50-60k sq.ft. store, you have to put stuff in it. But every bike that sits there, every game on a shelf, is $$ being spent to sit there for 4 months a year, at minimum. Too much bad inventory, too little good. Solve this by reducing space for selling. More "interactive spaces" so that kids can come in and play in the store. not just go up and down aisles and see toys. They will gravitate to the best sellers anyways, so why carry the extra crap no one wants? Set up kiosks around the store or an in-store app that allows parents to buy the "off" items and have them shipped for free to their house from a warehouse. That way, you can consolidate that turtle inventory into a single place that costs you $3/sq ft, and you can keep less of it - you don't have to ship it and shelf 3-4 of each at 500+ stores nationwide, just keep 50 on hand at the main warehouses. The savings on distribution and cash use and shelf space will cover the costs of the shipping. Other issue is cost of operating - both in leases and SGA. 33% SGA is killing the company. Leases, let non-A leases expire and shutter those as you can. Look at consolidating BabyR Us and Toys R Us into single unit stores in A locations. This gives the flexibility of Wal-Mart in terms of inventory allocation - more toy selection in 4th quarter. A planned area in each store that can swing between seasonal, toys, and baby items would allow the store to maintain costs while also being flexible in display. If you could get SGA to 20% year round, I think they would be profitable again. That would give them an additional $650 million a year for improving the leasehold, opening new locations in A areas only, Oh, and the CFO who decided to take on over $4 billion in long term debt should be shot.