Astor & Black Shuts Down, Declares Bankruptcy
Astor & Black Custom Clothiers is going out of business, a year after moving its headquarters to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., from Columbus.
The custom suit-maker filed for Chapter 7 liquidation on Thursday, citing assets of $1.7 million and liabilities of $8.5 million.
Astor & Black was founded in 2004 in Columbus by David Schottenstein of the local retailing family, who sold majority ownership of his 7-year-old business to private investors in 2011.
Schottenstein, who was 21 when he founded Astor & Black, said he had not been involved in the business since selling it two years ago.
“When I was involved with the business, I enjoyed it greatly,” he said. “I enjoyed working with our customers and basing the business in Columbus.”
After selling Astor & Black, Schottenstein went on to found Columbus-based No Surprises Software, which sells a cloud-based legal-billing system called Viewabill.
Astor & Black had more than 80 representatives around the world who went to customers’ homes or offices to custom tailor the merchandise.
Florida lured away Astor & Black from Ohio in May 2012 with a package of incentives worth $554,000.
Among large creditors, only BMW Bank of North America, to whom Astor & Black owes $67,000, holds secured debt.
Other large creditors, but with unsecured debt, are Colorado Department of Revenue, $136,552; Louisiana Department of Revenue, $118,442; North Carolina Department of Revenue, $68,409; and Missouri Department of Revenue, $42,824.
A previous version of this story incorrectly alluded to Mr. Schottenstein being the current owner of Astor & Black, when in fact Mr. Shcottenstein successfully sold the company to private investors in 2011. It was under their care that the once profitable company was forced into chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Schottenstein
You people clearly do not know the story here. David sold his entire stake in the company 2 years ago and was paid millions of dollars for his share. The new owners of the business ran the business very differently than he did and drove it into bankruptcy. David IS a very successful businessman and his new business is apparently doing extremely well. He is a huge Baal Tzedakah and its obvious the people posting here have zero clue. He did not own any of the business when it went into bankruptcy.
Yeah Riiiight
Yeah Riiight
Lol
Are you guys nuts!!?? Did you not see the news two years ago, on his very website?? Schottenstein already sold out and didnt own the company anymore! Some private equity group owned it. He was the smart one!
Schatenfreud
Look it up
Citizen Berel
Schatenfreud? Heh.
Schadenfreude
It’s spelled Schadenfreude and the meaning is so appropriate for some of the fools who post on these boards without knowing anything.
Schadenfreude i/ˈʃɑːdənfrɔɪdə/ (German: [ˈʃaːdənˌfʁɔʏdə]) is pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.[1] This word is a loanword from German, the direct English translation is ‘Damage-Joy’ or ‘Fail-Joy’, it is the feeling of joy when one sees another fail, and is also borrowed in some other languages.
Lubavitchers
The sad part of this is that a lot of people were reps for the company who will not have a job anymore.
Not sure why there is a moral lesson here (as stated in the comments that seem to be deleted). Companies going out of business is not good at all, and for our community specifically when many of our brothers were Astor and Black reps.
Jason smith
What happens to the clothiers and the customers who have orders pending?
Citizen Berel
This is very good question and you could not have picked a better website on which to ask it.
duh
he has the name, so he can get a head start over everyone else. he can also dress fancy etc, but it does not mean he can run a successful business. lets remeber he never did run a busines for a longer period of time.
it takes a lot more then that
To #7
Your comment is so incredibly ignorant and pathetic. Look at what the guy has done in business and look at what he has done helping people and helping the Rebbe’s shluchim. You choose to look at a company he started and SOLD and make such comments? You should truly be ashamed of yourself.
Sad
It’s sad that the company went out of business. Seeing that it was no longer a Lubavitcher owned company I don’t see why this is newsworthy for this website which seems to mostly report on items that have relevance to our community. Schottenstein’s name shouldn’t even be mentioned. It’s a classic story really. Private equity funds but successful entrepreneur run companies all the time and run them out of business all the time bc they do things in a way that just doesn’t work. It happens all the time. Nothing new or exciting about this. Hope he is successful with his new venture since his success has translated into big dollars for Chabad institutions.
Be nice
Small businesses go down every day. If the investors are adults they are responsible for their money and doing the due diligence before investing. Why make this personal????
Jealous jealous jealous
Wow!!! Interesting to see what jealousy does to people. Some of you seem so excited to knock on a person who has done far more good in a week than you have probably done in your lifetime. The craziest part is that there is nothing to even knock on him for! It wasn’t Schottenstein’s company anymore!! He sold it! What more do you want?!! He did a great job and should be very proud of his accomplishments. The fact that the buyers of his business ruined it isn’t his problem or fault. Move on people!
Daveed if you are reading....
Daveed if you are reading this board do not let the couple of dumb comments bother you. You are amazing and you are truly an inspiration. The Rebbe’s shluchim adore you and are all rooting for your current business to be sold for even more than you sold Astor and Black for!!!!!
Smoke and mirrors
It was over sold to private investors from the get go and the fractured foundation could not be repaired. The very sad thing here as earlier ones mentioned is that sales reps whom have families are without a job today. Shameful. Oversold bill of goods!
NOT oversold
I worked there. I know. It was NOT oversold. It was a great company and I left because I couldn’t stand the way it was run after DS left. The new people just went about things the wrong way. No smoke and mirrors at all. Everything was open to the buyers when they bought it. They are big boys and sophisticated buyers of businesses and they underestimated how important it was to keep DS happy and at the business. When he left, the thing fell apart. No sales, WAY higher expenses with all of the expensive executives they hired, and the big fancy office they got in florida which I know for a fact DS was against ALL of that!!!
NOT oversold #2
And to my knowledge almost all of the sales reps who were there when Schottenstein ran the company had left and started their own companies long before this and are doing VERY well financially with what they learned under him!!
The Whole Truth
It is true that A&B was oversold..but..Castanea over bought it and that ain’t no fault to David. David beat them at their own game.Truth is he only sold a majority share to them and had part of the company for a long time. The best salespeople started leaving the company as David sat and watched..no fault to him I guess because he never thought he would get anything more than the first bump from Castenea. After many injections of cash couldn’t help, then the flag went up. Brian Tracy says EVERYTHING rises and falls on leadership. So where does the blame go? When David had it he ran a 12 million dollar business from a cell phone..the new leadership couldn’t run a 25 million dollar business from a penthouse, they could only run it in the ground. Slight problem to Castenea, explain to investors how we lost 35 million on a company with NO ASSETS. They just don’t look to smart to me..on this one anyway.
To The Whole Truth
Amen!! You couldn’t have said it better! David did nothing wrong by selling his company. These guys acted like fools and had no work ethic at all, which David had and still has more of than any of them. I’ve always been a big fan of his and always will be!
LDR
They sold items for ridiculously cheap prices! You can’t even buy cloth and get a suit made for the prices they were charging; I’m in the business and the reason to be in business is for profit – don’t know how they made a profit unless items were inferior.