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Friday, October 17, 2008 - 12:03 PM PDT  |  Modified: Friday, October 17, 2008 - 12:09 PM Mervyns plans liquidation San Francisco Business Times Print Email Reprints RSS Feeds Add to Del.icio.us Digg This Comments (1) Related News SoupMan finally ready to open in Hyattsville Pillows help American Textile to grow despite down economy The North Face moves into the valley with San Jose store Fill the food banks, your closets Two join Lennar Corp. for military base projects It’s over for Mervyns. The Hayward retailer said Friday that it would close its remaining 149 locations. The stores will remain open through the holiday season with liquidation sales. Mervyns previously planned to close 26 underperforming locations. The 59-year old chain, with a California-heavy store base, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the end of July, but proved unable to gain any traction on its turnaround efforts. The company had struggled in recent years, squeezed at the bottom by retailers likeWal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and out-performed by its mid-tier competitors like Kohl’s and J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP). The economic downturn and housing crisis further hurt Mervyns since many of its California stores were in hard-hit areas. In April, John Goodman, formerly president and general manager of Levi’s Dockers brand, joined Mervyns as CEO but proved unable to turn the tide. “We are disappointed with this outcome, but the company’s declining liquidity position and the extremely challenging retail environment, together with the fact that we’ve exhausted all other possibilities, requires that we take this action,” Goodman said in a statement. An ownership group led by Cerberus Capital Management and Sun Capital Management purchased Mervyns from Target (NYSE: TGT) in 2004 for $1.2 billion.