True Value filed Chapter 11 in 2024 — 4,500 hardware stores, $153M sale to Do It Best

True Value was founded in 1948 as Cotter & Company by John Cotter, a hardware cooperative owned by its member retailers. At its peak after merging with ServiStar in 1997, it had 10,500 stores and $4.5 billion in sales. The True Value brand was one of the most recognised names in American hardware.

In 2018, ACON Investments purchased a 70% stake in True Value for an undisclosed sum, ending the 70-year cooperative structure. The private-equity ownership loaded the company with debt and shifted its focus from serving member-owners to servicing that debt.

By 2024, True Value was struggling with a weak housing market, plunging sales, and the debt from the 2018 buyout. On 14 October 2024, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Rival Do It Best acquired the company for $153 million in a stalking-horse sale, returning True Value to a cooperative structure as a Do It Best subsidiary.

Most of True Value's 4,500 independently owned stores remained open during the bankruptcy — the stores themselves were owned by local operators, not by True Value. But the corporate entity that supplied them and set strategy was gone, sold to a competitor for a fraction of its former value.