LL Flooring, formerly Lumber Liquidators, is liquidating after failing to find a buyer

LL Flooring, the flooring company formerly known as Lumber Liquidators, is going out of business after the bankrupt company failed to find a buyer. 

LL Flooring filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month, saying it was in negotiations with multiple parties to sell its business. The company also announced that it would close 94 stores across the U.S. 

But in a statement on Wednesday, the company said that the talks had failed to yield an offer and that it now plans to wind down the business. Roughly 2,000 workers will lose their jobs.

LL Flooring, which launched in Stoughton, Mass., as Lumber Liquidators in 1994, said it would hold closing sales at its roughly 200 remaining retail locations as the company moves to shutter them over the next 12 weeks.

“Under Chapter 11 rules, the company is required to achieve the highest or otherwise best offer for the company’s business or assets and, in this case, it was determined that a sale of the company’s individual assets, holding closing sales at our stores and winding down the business will deliver the most value to its creditors,” LL Flooring said in its statement.  

The company told customers that they may still place orders online and in stores until the closing process is complete and that existing orders for installations will be completed within 30 days. New orders for installation may not be placed after Sept. 6, the company said. 

Lumber Liquidators was once the largest specialty vendor of hardwood flooring in North America. But a 2015 “60 Minutes” report revealed that the company, then known as Lumber Liquidators, had dangerous levels of formaldehyde in its flooring. In 2019, LL Flooring agreed to pay $33 million in fines for misleading investors about levels of the chemical in its Chinese-made laminate flooring.