Circuit City to vacant 18 million sq.ft of stores and leave 34,000 employees jobless

RICHMOND, Virginia: What began 60 years ago as a humble television store in this sleepy Southern capital ended Sunday as Circuit City closed its doors for good - its 567 remaining U.S. stores to be left broom clean and vacant.

For the last month and a half, a group of four liquidators have conducted going-out-of-business sales for what was the nation's second-largest consumer electronics retailer, selling its remaining $1.7 billion worth of inventory weeks sooner than expected.

In its wake Richmond-based Circuit City Stores Inc. will leave more than 18 million square feet (1.67 million square meters) of vacant space in a faltering real estate market. And more than 34,000 employees, some who worked through the liquidation announced in January, will be jobless.

Shareholders will likely get nothing and creditors may receive far less than what they are owed.
Circuit City filed for bankruptcy protection in November with hopes of emerging as a stronger company able to compete in the ever-expanding marketplace; shedding its $2.32 billion in debt and getting out of older real estate.

Unable to work out a sale or secure new financing, the company will instead spend its remaining days tallying money from the sale of its assets, breaking or assigning its leases and paying off its growing list of creditors. Circuit City owes nearly $625 million to its 30 largest unsecured creditors - mostly vendors who supplied the DVDs, flat-screen TVs and headphones on Circuit City shelves.

Obama: Crisis is time of `great opportunity'

WASHINGTON (AP) -- As the dreadful economic news piles up, President Barack Obama challenged the nation Saturday to not just hang in there but rather to see the hard times as a chance to "discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis."

The work week ended on another dour note, with the report of 651,000 more American jobs slashed and an unemployment rate climbing to 8.1 percent. That is the highest rate of people out of work in more than 25 years, as the recession continued to put enormous pressures on families and industries.

As the White House takes on so many huge issues at once, Obama is encouraging people to take a longer view, and not get caught up in the fits and starts. The president said in his address that the nation will continue to face difficult days in the months ahead. Still, he ended with hope.
"Yes, this is a moment of challenge for our country," Obama said. "But we've experienced great trials before. And with every test, each generation has found the capacity to not only endure, but to prosper -- to discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis."