National home improvement chain is going out of business weeks after bankruptcy filing

Less than a month after filing for bankruptcy, LL Flooring, formerly Lumber Liquidators, is going out of business.

The company announced it will begin “winding down operations with store closing sales beginning at all remaining stores on September 6,” and expects the store closure process to be completed in about 12 weeks.

Closure times will vary from store to store. There are 12 stores in Massachusetts, according to the company’s website.

The company has Massachusetts roots, having been founded here back in 1993, the Associated Press reported.

The latest news comes weeks after announcing plans to close nearly 100 locations. At the time, the company said it was planning to sell all its remaining locations.

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However, after “working hard to pursue a going-concern sale of the Company,” the discussions didn’t yield an offer, the company announced in a statement in September.

Under Chapter 11 bankruptcy rules, the company is required to “achieve the highest or otherwise best offer for the Company’s business or assets.” In this case, the sale of the company’s individual assets, holding closing sales and winding down the business would “deliver the most value to its creditors.”

“This is not the outcome that any of us had hoped for,” LL Flooring CEO Charles Tyson wrote in a letter to customers, according to AP.

“As we begin to wind down operations and close our stores, we are committed to doing so as smoothly as possible to minimize the impact on you, our associates and the communities we serve.”

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LL Flooring had more than 400 stores earlier this year, the AP reported. After filing for bankruptcy, that number dropped to closer to 300 locations.

Now, all remaining stores will be affected and thousands of jobs will be lost in the process.

The AP reported LL Flooring had nearly 2,000 employees as of its August bankruptcy filing — 99% of which were working full time in the U.S.

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Since its inception 30 years ago, the business has expanded its operations nationwide and changed its name from Lumber Liquidators to LL Flooring — “following years of turmoil,” according to the AP.

The company faced litigation after a 2015 segment of “60 Minutes” reported the retailer was selling laminate flooring with dangerous levels of formaldehyde.

The company agreed to stop selling the product and to pay $36 million to settle lawsuits in 2017, according to the AP.