The campus of Newbury College, which closed this yearMichael Swensen for The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Gold lacrosse helmets. A projector. A lectern. Those are among the items being sold off at Newbury College, where the president announced last December “with a heavy heart” that the 57-year-old institution would be forced to close.
A company based in Alpharetta, Ga., that was hired to liquidate the Massachusetts college put it more plainly: “Everything must go! No reasonable offer refused!”
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The campus of Newbury College, which closed this yearMichael Swensen for The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Gold lacrosse helmets. A projector. A lectern. Those are among the items being sold off at Newbury College, where the president announced last December “with a heavy heart” that the 57-year-old institution would be forced to close.
A company based in Alpharetta, Ga., that was hired to liquidate the Massachusetts college put it more plainly: “Everything must go! No reasonable offer refused!”
A brutal stretch of years for small, private colleges has upended the lives of students, faculty, and staff. But it has also created a new area of business for the firm Eaton Hudson, which once focused on retail liquidations before realizing that college closures brought potential opportunities.
Both sectors have seen immense pressure. American retailers this calendar year have announced more than 6,970 store closures, according to Coresight Research, as the rise of online shopping slashed mall visits. More than 1,200 higher-education institutions shut down from 2014 to 2018, and small colleges are feeling the pinch.
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Two Eaton Hudson leaders — James Schaye, the company’s chief executive, and Barton Hyte, the executive vice president who runs its college division — spoke with The Chronicle about parallels between the two industries, what goes the fastest during a liquidation, and how to approach a college closure in an emotionally sensitive manner. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. When did you realize that the liquidation of small, private colleges might be a good next step in your business strategy?
Schaye. We got this call from Saint Joseph’s College, in Indiana, and they asked us if we would be interested in looking at their fixed assets. They were planning on winding down and trying to liquidate the school.
We had enough experience in selling fixed assets that we felt fairly comfortable that we would do it. It certainly was a space no one was really involved with. So, we went in and worked on Saint Joseph’s College, and it did extremely well. They were very happy, their creditors were very happy.
We turned around and formed this business. We’ve increased the staff in there, that’s where Barton Hyte got involved a year and a half ago, and is running this division. He has been directly involved with working with colleges and developing sales plans of these schools.
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Q. What would be a fixed asset for a retail store versus a fixed asset for a small college?
Hyte. Just imagine going to Neiman Marcus and Saks, and you look around. If you took all the inventory out, what’s left? You’re going to see chrome racks and showcases and displays.
For colleges, we have desks, chairs, computers, book cases, file cabinets, everything you would think of in a regular office. Everything in a college you’ll find in either any business environment or a call center or an operations center. This is a whole different group of people who come in to buy these. We had a ton of people coming in just to buy the Mac computers, which we sold out in two days. They were completely gone.
Q. After the Saint Joseph’s liquidation, how did you know this was a market you wanted to get into more deeply?
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Schaye. We started to realize that there were other colleges closing. There was Concordia. Or Marian Court in the North Shore. And there are other colleges that are in the pipeline. It’s hard for me to discuss because we’ve signed confidentialities. One led to another, which led to another.
We learned a long time ago that it’s a very emotional situation. Closing a retailer is certainly very emotional. Walking around Newbury College and seeing the kids there and knowing it was their last day, and they were leaving is always difficult. We’re sensitive to that.
When we did Saint Joseph’s, we did what was called an alumni weekend. There were a lot of items on the campus that the alumni were interested in. We had this alumni weekend and picnic, and allowed alumni to come up for the weekend and purchase a lot of things that were nostalgic.
Q. How much did you anticipate the emotional side going in? How did you approach that sensitivity when it comes to a college closing, versus, say, JCPenney?
Schaye. It’s somewhat the same. You have a lot of loyalpeople who worked in the JCPenney store. It’s giving respect to the people who are on site — the associates who have been there, or in this case, it was the teachers, it was the professors, it was the custodian staff.
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We try to utilize their services rather than bringing in our own people. We utilize them and their services. It gives them an opportunity to get some extra employment, and it gives them a sense of finality.
Q. Several small private colleges have closed. Do you expect to serve other sectors of higher education in the future?
Schaye. Unfortunately, this is a trend. Our pipeline has gotten a little bit busy — not necessarily saying we’ll get every one of these opportunities, or these colleges will all close.
But we’re finding that the phone is now — I won’t say ringing off the hook, but it’s gotten aggressive, and we’re starting to hear from colleges all over the country.
Hyte. It’s typically smaller private schools without endowments. Their sustainability, because of tuition and tuition costs — their enrollment is way down, and they just can’t survive. That’s what’s going on.
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What’s happened with us, typically, you would get a small college or a nonprofit, and what they would do is say they would donate it to someone else. Now they’re finding that they need the money. They sometimes have to pay off their staff or debt. It makes more sense to hire us to capture as much of the proceeds as they can so they can pay off their bills.
The old mentality is, let’s give the items away to a nonprofit. It doesn’t work anymore. You can’t give things away if you want money on it.