Toys "R" Us (US stores)

Cause of death

Killed by cost

with killed by a successor as a contributing factor

A leveraged buyout left it paying enormous annual interest instead of renovating stores.

Toys "R" Us was not killed by Amazon so much as by the $6.6 billion of debt loaded onto it in a 2005 leveraged buyout, which consumed the money that would otherwise have gone into the stores and the website. It limped for a decade, filed for bankruptcy, and liquidated its US chain in 2018. The brand has since reappeared as concessions inside other retailers, which is a trademark surviving rather than a company.