Lawyer: We Are Working to Put the Company Back Together


Alpha Omega stores remained closed today, four shopping days before Christmas. At the Natick store, posted signs read ‘Closed for Inventory,’ but stores at other locations displayed nothing but darkness. Shoppers peering into the Harvard Square location reported empty display cases.

Bankruptcy attorney Richard E. Mikels of Boston firm Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo—who told Bostonista he was retained by the company three weeks ago—could not comment on when, or if, stores might reopen, what has happened to items left in Alpha Omega’s possession for repairs, or whether or not customers will ever get those items back. Mikels added that he expected Raman Handa to return to the U.S. “within a few weeks.”

“We are working extremely hard to put Humpty Dumpty back together,” he said. “Right now, the bank is in possession of the assets, and the company has no employees. We are in negotiations with the bank to reopen the stores. It’s not good for anyone—not the bank, not the stores, not the employees—to have these stores closed four days before Christmas. Whatever’s going to happen later, this is not a time for a retail store to be closed.”

Negotiations with LaSalle Business Credit, an arm of Bank of America Corporation, have been “extremely cooperative,” said Mikels, but that the company would need additional funding in order to reopen. “If we can reopen the company, [Alpha Omega] will go back to the employees and see if they can rehire them. We want to get as many jobs back as soon as we can, and take care of the customer issues.”