Gymboree is a sub brand of

The Children's Place The Children’s Place is a retailer of clothing for children. It sells its products primarily under its proprietary brands The Children’s Place, Gymboree, Sugar & Jade, PJ Place and Crazy 8. The company has about 525 stores in the U.S., Canada ...

. Gymboree began with operating retail stores between the early 1970s and the later 2010s. It was founded by Joan Barnes.

History

Early years

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. 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, San Francisco, Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The largest of t ...

. In 2010,

Bain Capital Bain Capital, LP is an American Investment company, private investment firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, with around $185 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, p ...

acquired the company for US$1.8 billion.

Bankruptcy and liquidation

In June 2017, Gymboree announced it was filing for

Chapter 11 bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, w ...

protection. In September 2017, the company emerged from bankruptcy. 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 after the holiday season. On January 17, 2019, Gymboree filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and eliminated all Gymboree, Gymboree Outlet, and Crazy 8 brick-and-mortar formats as a result. The company sold its Janie & Jack brand 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 Stock, shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in their respective listed markets. Instead, the Private equi ...

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. As of 2023, Play & Music operates in over 40 countries and has more than 733 centers internationally.

Subbrand

On June 24, 2019, Gymboree and Crazy 8's assets were acquired by

, who announced that the former would become a digitally native sub brand with

store-within-a-store A store-within-a-store, also referred to as store-in-store (North America) or shop-in-shop (U.K. et al.), refers to a space within a larger retail store, designated for use by a specific brand to feature its products, clearly branded with signs ...

locations at The Children's Place stores. It was announced on January 30, 2020, that The Children's Place would debut 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