The market for bankrupt companies’ intellectual property is favoring sellers, as another wave of virus-related commercial Chapter 11 filings looms.
Retailers’ branding and e-commerce IP assets, in particular, have become more valuable as stores have increasingly pivoted away in recent years from brick-and-mortar operations—a trend accelerated by the pandemic— attorneys and consultants say.
With the transition, bankrupt or liquidating retailers’ IP assets that would otherwise have been frittered away or dumped for meager sums in the past are fetching relatively high dollars in auctions. Pier 1 Imports Inc. revealed plans this month to sell its IP and online retail business ...