DENVER (BRAIN) — Used gear retailer The Pro’s Closet is re-opening Monday under new ownership and some familiar management.
TPC closed last month after 18 years in operation. It sold off remaining inventory on its site and then auctioned other physical assets.
Last month Elshair Companies, a private investment firm, acquired TPC’s digital assets including its trademarks, website, software and customer database.
Elshair has hired two long-time TPC managers to run the company: Justin England, who was with TPC for 15 years, most recently as head of purchasing, is the new company’s Chief Revenue Officer; JP Gage, who was with TPC for about 12 years, most recently as operations manager, is the new company’s Chief Operating Officer.
The new CEO is Yassir Elshair, who founded Scottsdale, Arizona-based Elshair Companies 20 years ago. Elshair owns and operates several e-commerce businesses, including FragrantJewels.com, OliveOil.com, and Jane.com, a small-business marketplace platform.
England told BRAIN over the weekend that TPC planned to resume buying bikes, wheels and frames on Monday through its existing website, theproscloset.com. He said the company plans to lease a warehouse soon somewhere on Colorado’s Front Range. TPC was founded in Boulder and most recently was based in nearby Louisville. England said he hopes to re-hire some of the TPC employees who were laid off as the company downsized in recent months.
"For now, it’s largely JP and I managing things,” he said.
TPC founder Nick Martin, who hasn’t had an operational role in the company for several years, is not involved in the re-launch, England said. Martin stepped down as The Pro's Closet CEO in 2020.
England said TPC will resume acquiring used bikes and refurbishing them for re-sale through its Certified Pre-Owned program. He said TPC also plans to eventually resume selling “unique inventory” including industry closeouts, and would resume its trade-in program with bike shops.
But it won't be quite business as usual. England said TPC will minimize its emphasis on sales of new, inline products, including those covered by minimum advertised price (MAP) programs. He said TPC will avoid that market in part so the company is not perceived as being in competition with retailers who participate in its trade-in program. TPC will resume sales of overstock eventually, he said.
“It will be a bit of time before we have a healthy amount of inventory, but our aim is to fill the void that the closure of TPC created. … We will build back the dealer trade-in program in a way that provides value to dealers across the country and which hopefully is never viewed as a competitor,” he said.
In recent years TPC closed on investments of at least $70 million (more than $90 million by some reports). Its investors included The Chernin Group , Foundry Group, Edison Partners, and Ridgeline Ventures. Its most recent investment was a $5.5 million Series C round that closed in January; the company also told the SEC it sold nearly $20 million in equity shares in January. The company hired dozens and expanded into sales of overstock and then new, inline products both online and through a brick-and-mortar store, which it said would be the model for future stores. The first store was at its 137,000-square-foot facility in Louisville. It rebranded as TPC in 2023.
But TPC fell victim to a post-pandemic whiplash that devalued used (and new) inventory. The company made several rounds of layoffs starting in 2022. Investors apparently pulled the plug this fall, assigning its assets to a California ABC (Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors). The wind-down of the old company through the state ABC process is being handled by a firm accepting claims until next March at fileaclaim.info/ThePro'sCloset-ABC.
