My understanding is that the main cause for failure was being brought up by private equity, loaded up with debt, and then being hit by huge interest rate rises.
Isn't this essentially the same thing that killed Toys-R-Us?
Yeah. It's bizarre that leveraged buyouts are even legal given how destabilizing it is to local economies; but also Bain Capital (the company which did the buyout of Toys R Us) was cofounded by Senator Mitt Romney, so you can start to understand why the FTC and Congress aren't really inclined stop the madness and regulate themselves more
Changes to retail (e.g. online, e.g. Amazon) killed Toys-R-Us, PE just pimped it out until they could sell it for parts