Rand's Hallmark Stores Allowed to Stay Open ... for Now

Update/posted at 8:05 p.m. Monday:

Rand's Hallmark stores will remain open through at least the end of the month as owner Gary Watland works to find buyers for some or all of the six retail outlets.

The primary loan holder has backed off a mandate that the assets be auctioned off in a UCC sale that was to be held Tuesday, Watland said Monday night. It was the announcement of the auction that forced interested buyers to drop their plans to buy one or more stores, in part because there was insufficient time for them to secure financing, he said.

However, he is bitter that the venture was a failure, he said.

"When I bought this company in 2005, it was not what it was represented to be," Watland said. 

As former partner Val Rand said, the economy did deal a blow to sales, Watland said, but he also alleges there were other problems in how the debt was represented and how taxes were being paid that created a situation that was impossible to overcome.

As a result, the stores were not being restocked with enough merchandise and many customers were coming in but unable to purchase what they wanted, he said.

"We were so retricted, we couldn't order new product," Watland said. "Our customers were loyal, but when you're putting out insufficient product, you don't have what they want."

Hallmark, however, wants to remain in the markets in which the Rand stores are located and if he can arrange sales to new owners, the stores will carry on and won't have the debt problems plaguing the current chain, he said. 

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All six Rand's Hallmark stores, including the one on Route 34 in Oswego, will close by day's end, employees confirmed Monday.

It's possible the stores will be assumed into the corporate Hallmark chain, purchased by another Hallmark franchise owner or independent buyer, or closed completely, said Val Rand, who no longer manages the business that bears his name but remains 80 percent invested. 

The stores are to be auctioned Tuesday.

"In this depression -- I call it a depression -- retail got hurt worse than anything," Rand said. "We lost 40 percent of our business in 2008."

The business, with stores Oswego, Joliet Frankfort, Tinley Park, Lockport and Orland Hills, went into receivership and is now facing bankruptcy, he said. 

In the last five years, Rand and partner Gary Watland shut down several stores, including those in Romeoville and Naperville, and Rand was forced out of management of the chain two years ago when it was decided that there was not enough income to support both partner owners, he said.  

"I've lost my entire life savings," Rand said. "Everything I had is going to be claimed in this bankruptcy."

Rand, a Barrington native, came to Joliet in 1967 when he was employed by the Hallmark Co. and worked in the printing division, he said. He decided to open a Hallmark store as a franchise, and expanded from there, he said.

That they would be dealt such a devastating blow in the 2008 economic recession could not have been foreseen, Rand said. But the high-end card and gift industry is a luxury business when people need to cut back on their spending, he said.

Still, he is hopeful the stores will remain in business, either purchased by the Hallmark Co. and run as a corporate business or by another Hallmark franchise owner.