12 August 2015

One Out, One In: Family Christian Stores and Gospel LIght Publishing

With no surprise--but some personal disappointment--the plan of liquidation of Family Christian Stores, which arranges for its sale to previous owner and largest creditor, Richard Jackson, was approved by the bankruptcy court. Read about it here. As I posted a week ago here, the creditors of FCS believed that taking a 65% haircut on their pre-bankruptcy claims was better than the alternative: shuttering the FCS stores, selling off what inventory remains, and having one fewer retail outlet for their materials.

Will the reduction in debt be enough to keep the new Family Christian Stores in business? Quoting from from a literary agent, Sarah Zylstra at Christianity Today notes here that FCS will still have a tough row to hoe.

But Family Christian Stores' survival comes at a price. Yesterday one of its vendors, Gospel Light Publishing, has filed its own Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Read about it here. The world of print media is an increasingly tough one so it's not the case that the bankruptcy of FCS was the only cause of Gospel Light's financial woes. The write-off of $143,000 owed by Family Christian Stores, however, was certainly the precipitating factor.

You can read Jacqueline Palank's more detailed account of the Gospel Light bankruptcy in the Wall Street Journal here.

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