Belk filed for bankruptcy on a Tuesday.
It came out on Wednesday.
February 23, 2021, into court. February 24, plan confirmed and in effect. A 133-year-old chain with 291 stores, 17,000 employees and roughly one point nine billion dollars of debt, in and out in under 24 hours.
Total time on the record at the confirmation hearing: about an hour and forty-nine minutes.
The United States Trustee filed an objection the same day the case opened. He wrote that the company was trying to “race through chapter 11 too quickly” and wanted to “have their cake and eat it too.”
The judge let it through anyway.
Why he did, and why the lenders required it, explains more about American retail than any store visit could.