Christian Retail Chain Withdraws Bankruptcy Filing after Being Bought out

Amanda Casanova | ChristianHeadlines.com Contributor | Updated: Aug 12, 2015

Christian Retail Chain Withdraws Bankruptcy Filing after Being Bought out

Family Christian, America’s largest Christian retail company, will stay open despite a bankruptcy sale of the chain.

Family Christian Stores will be sold to FCS Acquisitions for between $52.4 million and $55.7 million, according to Christianity Today. A bankruptcy judge approved the sale this week.

With the sale, more than 200 bookstores will stay open and about a dozen stores will close.

"We have a sovereign God who has a plan for Family Christian," said CEO Chuck Bengochea. “We have been through dark days and now we can celebrate.”

The chain will be rebranded as FCO, LLC. 

“For the short term they will be healthy. And if they can adapt to the retail challenges ahead they may be successful,” Christian literary agent Steve Laube told Christianity Today. “Unfortunately, their financial ‘health’ came at the expense of a number of publishers, suppliers, and authors.”

Gospel Light Publishing, which sold curriculum through Family Christian, filed for bankruptcy last week.

Family Christian had about $127 million in debt. In 2014, the chain earned about $230 million in gross revenues compared to $305 million in gross revenues in 2008.

“The most important part of the story is that the Family Christian bookstore chain has survived the bankruptcy and will continue in business,” said Mark D. Taylor, president of Tyndale House Publishers.

Publication date: August 12, 2015



Christian Retail Chain Withdraws Bankruptcy Filing after Being Bought out