West Marine, Inc. Bankruptcy Case

West Marine, Inc. is advancing toward an August exit in a prearranged Chapter 11 in the District of Delaware, with both a section 363 sale hearing and a plan confirmation hearing calendared as the debtor works a dual-track recapitalization-or-sale restructuring. The omni-channel marine aftermarket retailer — roughly 200 stores across 34 states and Puerto Rico and about 2,600 crew members — filed for Chapter 11 on May 17, 2026, Voluntary PetitionDkt. 1, after macroeconomic volatility, inflation, and a roughly $55 million annual lease burden overtook its capital structure.

At the petition date the debtors carried approximately $549.2 million of obligations: $251.2 million under the Wilmington Savings Fund Society–administered Term Loan, $118.9 million under Eclipse Business Capital's ABL Facility, $59.2 million under the FILO Facility, and about $119.9 million of unsecured trade and lease claims, against only ~$21.5 million of cash, Day DeclarationDkt. 15. To fund the case the debtors are operating on a cash-collateral-only basis under the interim order entered May 19, 2026, which authorizes budget-governed use of the prepetition secured parties' collateral and grants adequate-protection replacement liens and section 507(b) superpriority claims to the ABL and term-loan agents, Interim Cash Collateral OrderDkt. 71; no final cash-collateral order or new-money DIP facility has since been entered.

The case rests on a Restructuring Support Agreement backed by 100% of FILO lenders, 96.2% of term-loan lenders, and 93.9% of equity interests, described in the first-day declaration, which sets out two exit paths: a default recapitalization equitizing the $251.2 million of term-loan claims while paying or rolling out the ABL and FILO into exit facilities with three-year maturity extensions, or a marketing-and-sale process in which the term-loan lenders may credit bid. General unsecured creditors are slated for a pro rata share of a $250,000 distribution contingent on class acceptance. An amended joint plan and disclosure statement were filed in late June to implement the RSA and now govern the confirmation track.

The court approved a discovery stipulation among West Marine, the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, L Catterton and the Ad Hoc Group of Consenting Stakeholders, resolving the Committee’s Rule 2004 motion and establishing an accelerated evidentiary schedule for the August 11 plan confirmation hearing. Under the confirmation discovery order, rolling document production begins July 14 and must be substantially completed by July 20, when fact depositions also begin. Initial expert reports are due July 22, fact depositions conclude July 29, rebuttal reports are due August 3 and expert depositions end August 8.

The order extends the Committee’s plan objection deadline to August 3 at 11:59 p.m. ET and requires witness lists, exhibit lists and declarations by August 8. The compressed schedule channels the Committee’s investigation of potential estate claims directly into confirmation litigation, leaving roughly four weeks to complete document, fact and expert discovery before the court considers the proposed restructuring.

West Marine, Inc.

West Marine, Inc.

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Committee investigation shifts to expedited confirmation discovery

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