Gymboree Group, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of

The Children's Place The Children's Place Inc. is a specialty retailer of children’s apparel and accessories headquartered in New Jersey. It also markets apparel under the Children's Place, Place, Baby Place, and Gymboree brand names. As of October 31, 2015, it ...

History

Gymboree was founded by Joan Barnes in 1976.

Retail stores

In 1986, the company opened a chain of clothing stores named Gymboree. Gymboree stores offered coordinating children's clothing. The sizes ranged from newborn to size ten. As of January 2019, it operated 380 Gymboree stores, 154 Gymboree outlets, 147 Janie & Jack stores, 253 Crazy 8 stores, and 11 Crazy 8 outlets in the U.S. and Canada. Gymboree - Scarborough TC

Crazy 8 was started in August 2007. It featured lower-priced clothing and was Gymboree's direct competitor for

and

Old Navy Old Navy is an American clothing and accessories retailing company owned by multinational corporation Gap Inc. It has corporate operations in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The largest of the Old Navy stores are its ...

. In 2010,

Bain Capital Bain Capital is an American private investment firm based in Boston. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, public equity, impact investing, life sciences, and real estate. Bain Capital invests across a range of industry se ...

acquired the company for US$1.8 billion. In June 2017, Gymboree announced it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. As part of the debt management process, it said it would close 375 of its 1,300 stores. In September 2017, the company emerged from bankruptcy. In 2017, the company closed 350 of its 1,281 stores. In November 2018, it was reported that Gymboree would file for bankruptcy for the second time in 14 months, and as a result, Gymboree announced plans to discontinue the Crazy 8 brand and close all Crazy 8 stores after the holiday season. On January 17, 2019, Gymboree filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, closing all Gymboree, Gymboree Outlet, and Crazy 8 stores as a result. The company sold its Janie & Jack stores to Gap, Inc.

Play & Music Centers

In July 2016, The Gymboree Corporation sold the Gymboree Play & Music business to Zeavion Holding, a

private company A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...

with a focus on the education and entertainment sectors. Gymboree Play & Music is now completely separate from the Gymboree Corporation and is operating parent-child play classes for ages 0–5. Play & Music operates in over 40 countries and has more than 733 centers internationally. Gymboree Play and Music centers are not affected by the Gymboree stores closing.

Relaunch

On June 24, 2019, the Gymboree assets were sold to

, who announced that Gymboree would relaunch as an online retailer and would also feature a

store-within-a-store A store-within-a-store, also referred to as shop-in-shop, is an agreement in which a retailer rents a part of the retail space to be used by a different company to run another, independent shop. Origins In the early days of cellular telephone gr ...

concept at The Children's Place stores. It was announced on January 30, 2020, that The Children's Place would relaunch Gymboree in February that year, featuring an "early access" program that would allow early access to the first 10,000 customers who register a spot.

Lawsuits

In November 2005, Gymboree settled a lawsuit relating to overtime compensation in Riverside, California for $2.3 million. The lawsuit alleged that Gymboree did not pay mandatory overtime or provide required meal breaks.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gymboree Corporation Franchises American companies established in 1976 Clothing companies established in 1976 Retail companies established in 1976 American companies disestablished in 2019 Clothing companies disestablished in 2019 Retail companies disestablished in 2019 American companies established in 2020 Retail companies established in 2020 2010 mergers and acquisitions Early childhood education Early childhood education in the United States Clothing retailers of the United States Bain Capital companies Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017 Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2019 Medical and health organizations based in California 1976 establishments in California 2019 disestablishments in California Re-established companies