Musician's Friend to File Chapter 11

I had it wrong: I thought Guitar Center was owned by Musician's Friend. Apparently, it's the other way around. I received this email message today:

Quote:

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Thank you for being a loyal customer of Musician's Friend. We genuinely appreciate your business.

I'm pleased to share that our parent company — Guitar Center, Inc. — has announced an agreement to strengthen their financial structure which will allow us to serve you better for the long term. During this time there is likely to be press coverage, so we wanted you to hear from us what to expect.

• Our website and call centers are open and available to you as we continue to operate our business as usual.
• We will continue to serve your needs as usual, therefore customer service, Musician's Friend Rewards, financing and Gold Coverage remain unaffected.

To facilitate this financial restructuring, we will voluntarily file for restructuring under Chapter 11. During this time, we will have ample financing to continue all of our operations without interruption.

Most importantly, we are staying focused on helping more customers make music. We continue to have the gear you want and need, with new gear arriving regularly and we are here to support your musical needs as we have exciting Musician's Friend holiday promotions ready for you!

If you have questions or concerns please feel free to email us at service@musiciansfriend.com or call us at 877-880-5907

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I think this is the 11th time in 11 years that there’s been stories about GC/MF filing for Chapter 11.

Well, Chapter 11 is about "reorganization." It doesn't necessarily mean "out of business." Although many businesses find they are unable to reorganize, and then fall into Chapter 7 - "liquidation of assets."

hmm, I still haven't heard boo from them yet. I recently purchased a guitar from them and now have a MF credit card account. I was wondering if they were going to be affected by GC's reorganization.

They have been circling the drain for years. They will most likely survive again, but who knows? I do most of my business through Sweetwater, with a little bit through American Musical Supply, or (gasp) Amazon.

I stopped using MF when I ordered my first piece of gear from Sweetwater. The follow up call to see if your happy with your purchase is a great service. And there's continuity--how many of you always deal with Matt? ha ha He is a real person. Just got married. I buy too much gear. I shouldn't know that.

I had a great sales engineer at Sweetwater for years, but he ended up retiring rather than going back to the office after the covid reopening. He was a few years older than I and his wife was high risk. They had a place on a lake they really adored and I wish him the best.

My new Sweetwater sales engineer is ok but I haven't yet made a connection with him. When I bought the Bonamassa Black Beauty from MF, I started getting these calls from Malta, IL. Since I didn't know whodaphug that was I didn't answer (actually my phone only rings on numbers in my contact list now). Turns out it was somebody from MF calling to see how I liked the guitar. Nice lady, left voicemails. The call back number is Indianapolis so I guess she's using her own phone. I once had a doctor in NH whose phone number was from Kansas, so I totally get it. If I moved, say to Florida or something, I'd keep my number too.

I've been pretty lucky buying online. Apart from a disappointing Epiphone Flying V that I sent right back and now the Spirit that's having issues, my purchases have met and/or exceeded my expectations. They definitely have exceeded my storage capacity, lol :D