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<p>NEW YORK (AP) &#8212; Toys R Us, squeezed by Amazon.com and huge chains like Walmart, will close 180 stores, or about 20 percent of its U.S. locations, within months.</p><p>The Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores in Wilkes-Barre and Wilkes-Barre Township will remain open.</p><p>Hobbled by $5 billion in debt, the company that once dominated toy sales in the U.S. filed for bankruptcy protection in September.</p><p>Chairman and CEO Dave Brandon said in a letter Wednesday that tough decisions are required to save Toys R Us.</p><p>Toys R Us operates about 900 stores in the U.S.</p><p>The store closings will begin in February and the majority of the targeted locations will go dark by mid-April. At some other locations, the retailer is combining its Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores.</p><p>Toys R Us, based in Wayne, New Jersey, has struggled with debt since private-equity firms Bain Capital, KKR &amp; Co. and Vornado Realty Trust took it private in a $6.6 billion leveraged buyout in 2005. The plan had been to take the company public again, but weak sales have prevented that from happening.</p><p>While its numbers have been shrinking, Toys R Us still sells about 20 percent of the toys bought in the U.S. according to Stephanie Wissink, an analyst at Jefferies LLC.</p><p>Competitive pressures will force the company to take a close look at all of its stores, and more will likely be shuttered over the next year or two, Wissink said.</p><p>Toys R Us reigned supreme in the 1980s and early 1990s, when it was one of the first of the &#8220;category killers&#8221; &#8212; a store totally devoted to one thing: toys. Its scale gave it leverage with toy sellers and it disrupted general merchandise stores and mom-and-pop shops.</p><p>Now Toys R Us and other category killers like the now-defunct Sports Authority, Borders and Circuit City, are being upended by a new force: Amazon.com.</p><p>GlobalData Retail estimates that about 13.7 percent of toy sales were made online in 2016, up from 6.5 percent five years ago.</p><p>Toys R Us has been hurt by a shift to mobile devices as well, which take up more and more play time.</p><p>About three dozen retailers sought bankruptcy protection last year due in large part to a radical shift in consumer behavior, both in where they shop, and what they buy.</p><p>Toys R Us closed its flagship store in Manhattan&#8217;s Times Square, a huge tourist destination, about two years ago.</p><p>The struggles of Toys R Us have rippled outward and rumors continue to swirl around the possibility of a merger between Mattel and Hasbro, the nation&#8217;s largest toy makers.</p><p>Wissink estimates that Toys R Us accounts for about 11 percent of Mattel&#8217;s annual sales and about 9 percent of Hasbro&#8217;s annual volume. Shares of both Mattel Inc. and Hasbro Inc. slipped in early trading.</p><p>Brandon said Wednesday that the company made some missteps during the critical holiday shopping season.</p><p>&#8220;As the leader of this company, I want you to know that we can and will address the gaps in the experience that you may have had when shopping this holiday,&#8221; Brandon said. &#8220;My team is already hard at work to make the improvements necessary to ensure that we have the products you want, when, where and how you want them.&#8221;</p><p>_____________</p><p>Follow Anne D&#8217;Innocenzio: http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">FILE - In this Sept. 19, 2017, file photo, shoppers walk into a Toys R Us store, in San Antonio. Toys R Us says it will be closing some U.S. stores and converting others to cobranded locations as it continues to deal with its financial restructuring following its bankruptcy filing. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File) </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/web1_119663022-f4a86c6625424803a420dfce925561b0.jpg</photo0><caption0>FILE - In this Sept. 19, 2017, file photo, shoppers walk into a Toys R Us store, in San Antonio. Toys R Us says it will be closing some U.S. stores and converting others to cobranded locations as it continues to deal with its financial restructuring following its bankruptcy filing. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File) </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>

Toys R Us will shutter 180 stores; Luzerne County locations will remain open