The story
Early history
A.C. Moore was founded as a single arts and crafts store by Jack Parker and William Kaplan in 1985 in Moorestown, New Jersey ("A. C. Moore" – arts and crafts, Moorestown). Parker, with the position of president, was a merchandising veteran of Woolworth's, and Kaplan, CEO, had a career in fashion production.
A.C. Moore went public in October 1997.
Decline, buyout, and closure
By 2006, the A.C. Moore had peaked with sales of $598 million but these numbers began to decline in the years that followed.
In 2011, as A.C. Moore was experiencing a cash crunch, one of its suppliers stepped in to save the company through a merger. Sbar's, an art supplies distributor based in nearby Moorestown, in association with its affiliate Nicole Crafts, acquired A. C. Moore for $1.61 per-share (a valuation of $41 million). The buyout was executed as a merger, with A. C. Moore becoming a subsidiary of Nicole Crafts, the Sbar's in-house goods brand. Sbar's seven retail stores were absorbed into A. C. Moore.
On November 25, 2019, A.C. Moore announced that it would close all 145 of its locations (with some closing as early as December 15, 2019), and sell the leases for up to 40 locations, a distribution center, and unspecified intellectual property assets to the competing chain Michaels. As of June 2020, A. C. Moore was still undergoing the liquidation process. As of July 2020, all stores had been closed, and Michaels had taken over its distribution facility on A. C. Moore Drive in Winslow, New Jersey.
From Wikipedia’s article on A.C. Moore, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4