Standard General has increased its initial $145m bid by at least $20m to acquire bankrupt electronics retailer RadioShack’s retail stores in a court-supervised auction.
The hedge fund is seeking to buy more than 1,740 RadioShack stores, Reuters reported citing people familiar with the auction process.
If acquired, the stores will be operated by Standard General in partnership with Sprint Corp. Standard General also intends to retain close to 7,500 RadioShack employees.
The result of the private auction must be approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware.
The company, which was RadioShack’s largest shareholder, offered $535m in rescue-financing to the retailer in 2014.
Spring Mobile, a unit of video-game chain GameStop Corp, has won the bid in a previous auction for the acquisition of about 160 stores.
As reported in Bloomberg, Spring has about two months to decide over the locations it wants to take over.
RadioShack has filed for bankruptcy in February with more than 4,000 stores.
The retailer is also planning to offer more than 13 million email addresses and 65 million physical addresses to the highest bidder.
However, attorneys general in Texas and Tennessee have joined a lawsuit to stop the sale of the customer information.