QVC Group files for Chapter 11 as shopping shifts online

QVC Group, the parent of QVC and HSN, filed for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas as the once-dominant televised shopping model comes under pressure from livestream commerce, social platforms and algorithm-driven online marketplaces. The company said it had entered a Restructuring Support Agreement with holders representing a significant majority of its funded debt and expects to emerge as Reorganized QVC, Inc. within about 90 days.

The restructuring is designed to slash debt while keeping the business running. QVC Group said its international operations in the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and Italy are not included in the case, and that its brands are operating as usual. It said it has more than $1 billion in cash on hand and enough liquidity to meet obligations during the process. Vendors, suppliers and other general unsecured creditors of the filing entities are to be paid in full for goods and services, and the company said there are no planned layoffs or furloughs. Team members are to continue receiving wages and benefits without interruption.

The filing lands after a long slide in the company’s financial performance. QVC Group reported full-year 2024 revenue of $10.026 billion, down 5% from the prior year, with an operating loss of $809 million. In the fourth quarter, revenue was $2.944 billion and the operating loss reached $1.3 billion. The company also said it reduced principal debt by $442 million in 2024 and lengthened its maturity profile, but those steps did little to stop investor confidence from eroding. QVC’s sales in 2024 were down almost 30% from their peak in 2020, when revenue topped $14 billion, and the company’s stock, which once traded above $900 a decade ago, had fallen to under $3 earlier this week.

Chief executive David Rawlinson has cast the restructuring as part of a broader WIN Growth Strategy aimed at live social shopping across social platforms, streaming apps, ecommerce sites, stores and TV channels. QVC Group said it had become a top seller on TikTok Shop U.S. over the past year, expanded on streaming and other platforms, consolidated HSN and QVC operations, and adjusted sourcing in response to tariffs. The case is jointly administered as Case No. 26-90447 before Judge Alfredo R. Perez, with the first-day hearing set for April 17 at 1 p.m. Central time.

The company’s fight for relevance carries unusual weight because QVC helped define an era of retail television. Joseph Segel founded QVC in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1986, and the first broadcast aired on November 24, 1986, on 58 cable systems across 20 states. Liberty Interactive combined QVC and HSN in 2017, a merger meant to create a leader in discovery-based shopping. Four years later, that legacy brand is trying to prove that Chapter 11 can be a bridge to reinvention, not a final acknowledgment that the old home-shopping category has run out of road.