Tru Kids, Inc. is a company that owns the Toys "R" Us and Babies "R" Us brands. It was established on January 20, 2019 after its lenders cancelled the bankruptcy auction and took over the Toys "R" Us intellectual property in October 2018.
History
On October 1, 2018, Toys "R" Us issued a court filing for the bankruptcy, after the company’s shut down since June 28, 2018. Tru Kids planned a merge for the company, to rerun as new Toys "R" Us. Tru Kids managed agreements with the company, to be its successor, and to be renamed “Tru Kids” from Geoffrey LLC. The company unveiled plans for a preliminary venture to be known as Geoffrey's Toy Box, a wholesale store-within-a-store concept that the company planned to deploy in time for the holiday shopping season. The company planned to revive the Toys "R" Us and Babies "R" Us brands in the future. In November 2018, it was announced that agreements had been made with the grocery market chain named Kroger will add toy displays under the Geoffrey's Toy Box brand to some of its locations, to sell selections of Toys "R" Us private-label products for holiday seasons. The brand, Geoffrey’s Toy Box, operates as Geoffrey LLC, an intellectual property holding company within Toys "R" Us. On January 20, 2019, the bankruptcy plan went into effect, and the Toys "R" Us, Inc. trademarks were transferred to Tru Kids. In July 2019, Tru Kids announced they would open two stores at the Galleria Mall in Houston, Texas and the Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey as they touted a United States comeback. As part of opening the stores, Tru Kids partnered with software powered company b8ta to power the physical shopping experience in the new stores. On October 8, 2019, Tru Kids announced they had partnered with retailer Target to relaunch the Toys “R” Us e-commerce site. As part of the agreement, Target now powers toy assortment and fulfillment capabilities for Toys “R” Us.com and Toys “R” Us retail stores in the United States. On November 27, 2019, Tru Kids opened their first reimagined United States retail store after being absent from the US retail landscape for over 16 months.
