Healthy Food Delivery : Why Are So Many Stores Closing in 2025?

2024 saw a slew of retailers announce that they were closing stores across the country. And in 2025, the news is worse: retailers across industries are closing nearly 15,000 this year. That figure puts store closures up by 334%. You’ve probably seen the headlines about some of the biggest closure announcements, JoAnn Fabrics among them. But unless you’re keeping meticulous tabs on every bankruptcy filing, you may not have realized just how large this new slew of filings is.

Some of these filings are straightforward bankruptcy announcements. Others, like the aforementioned Joann Fabric’s closure, are creating multiple headlines as companies sell off more and more of their brick-and-mortar locations as part of a series of bankruptcy filings.

Why Are Store Closures Up So Much?

Oftentimes, when corporate bankruptcies make the news, you may hear people bemoan the rise of private equity firms. But it’s one thing to hear speculation— it’s another to see the actual numbers laid out in front of you. And when it comes to private equity firms, the numbers are incredibly bleak.

The Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) released a Bankruptcy Tracker Report that found that private equity firms are disproportionately represented in bankruptcy cases. According to the report, these firms only account for 6.5% of the U.S. economy. However, private equity-owned companies represented 11% of filings for corporate bankruptcies. And when that lens is narrowed to large corporate bankruptcies, the report continues, private equity was involved 56% of filings.

The PESP’s report poses an answer as to why private equity is s0 over-involved in these corporate bankruptcy filings. According to the report, these firms operate on a short-sighted business model. “The private equity model prefers short-term profits and rapid value extraction over the long-term stability of the companies in their portfolios,” it argues. This focus on the short-term instead of the long-term “can lead to significant mismanagement and economic instability, contributing to higher bankruptcy rates among private equity-owned firms.”

It’s unlikely that private equity firms are going to disappear anytime soon. And as such, it’s incredibly likely that more and more major retailers will declare bankruptcy and close their doors. Until private equity changes its business models or gets shut out from these industries entirely, these firms will continue to contribute to layoffs and the closing of stores we thought would last forever.