Private equity bought Sport Chalet already $52M in debt — it lasted 20 months

Vestis Retail Group acquired Sport Chalet in August 2014 for about $70 million, a deal that included roughly $52 million in existing debt carried onto the combined business alongside Vestis's other chains, Eastern Mountain Sports and Bob's Stores. Both Sport Chalet and Eastern Mountain Sports were already in financial difficulty at the time of the acquisition.

Eastern Mountain Sports showed some recovery under Vestis ownership in the following two years, but Sport Chalet did not, weighed down by what the company described as competitive pressures specific to the sporting-goods retail category — squeezed between big-box sporting goods chains and online retailers. On April 16, 2016, Sport Chalet announced it would close all of its stores, having already halted online sales.

Two days later, Vestis Retail Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, closing all 47 remaining Sport Chalet locations across California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona, plus eight Eastern Mountain Sports properties and one Bob's Stores location. Vestis sold the surviving Eastern Mountain Sports and Bob's Stores businesses to Versa Capital Management, while Sport Chalet was wound down entirely.