Solid again: National Wholesale Liquidators reopens in Philly (Update)

(UPDATE with CEO Scott Rosen) "People ask me, why did we go back?" says Scott Rosen, boss at family-owned National Wholesale Liquidators, which has returned from its own 2009 bankruptcy liquidation and shutdown, and is opening the first of six planned Philadelphia stores in Frankford next week.

"I'll tell you," Rosen said: "We had more than 4,000 employees. The average employee worked 16, 17 years for the company. What would they do? The family had a responsiblity. The story couldn't end where it ended, just because the banking world collapsed."

So National Wholesale Liquidators, based in West Hempstead, Long Island, is opening a store in a former Kmart at 900 Orthodox St., in Philadelphia's Frankford section, next Tuesday May 17. The opening extends the chain's revival under  Rosen, a former periodontist at HUP (Penn Dental '85), who returned home to Long Island after a marital breakup 25 years ago to join the family business.

Ten years ago the chain peaked at 47 stores -- six in Philly -- with 4,200 staff and $500 million in yearly sales. But the credit crisis and recession forced National Wholesale Liquidators into Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation in 2009; all but five stores shut.

The chain has recovered to 13 stores with 1,000 workers and plans five more locations in Philadelphia as it grows nationally. As part of the Frankford opening, the chain is donating equipment to students at St. Martin de Porres School, which won the Pennsylvania 8th grade parochial school title this year even though it doesn't have a gym. Rosen plans more community specials.

When the Liquidators liquidated, the Rosen family pooled "first $12 million, then $15 mllion to buy back, first five stores, and then the intellectual property" -- name, systems, customer lists -- "from the court," Rosen told me.

There was no inventory. "But we got the most important thing: incredibly loyal customers -- and vendors, some of them for 25 years, they believed in us and they made it possible for us to come back."

Rosen counts at least 8 previous empoloyees from his chian's former store at St. Vincent's near Cottman and at Rising Son Plaza on Adams Ave. at the new Orthodox St. location, another 10 from the former Kmart on the site. 'We are counting on customers to re-shop us here," he said.

Financing has gotten easier: "When we started from scratch in January of 09, you couldnt borrow a nickel. All the financing came from what the family could put together again. But we had great relationships with banks that knew us from before," and lending trickled back after the stores started reopening. "Now we're financed by Capital One which is an incredible institution. They believe in us and in our growth story."

Rosen's parents still come to work. "And there's another generation behind me, I got four kids, dabbling in the business. I hope to be able to get to where we were, half a billion dollar business. Then I'll be done."

I asked if he knew old Albert Boscov, who also bought back into his company and refloated it. "We sold him mops back in 1973," Rosen said, laughing. "They're kicking (the competition) today."