VALDOSTA — The Gander Mountain has announced 32 under-performing stores will be closing, but the Valdosta location is not among them.

The stores closing is a result of Gander Mountain filing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to a press release from the company.

The 32 stores slated to close include Augusta, McDonough and Snellville in Georgia; Gadsden, Mobile, Montgomery and Tuscaloosa in Alabama; Champaign, Algonquin and Springfield in Illinois; Merrillville and Greenfield in Indiana; Rogers, Mankato and Woodbury in Minnesota; New Hartford in New York; Raleigh and South Charlotte in North Carolina; Chattanooga in Tennessee; Houston, Killeen, Laredo, Lubbock, Round Rock, San Antonio, Sugar Land, Texarkana, Waco and West Houston in Texas; Charleston in West Virginia; and Eau Claire and Germantown in Wisconsin.

“Like many retailers, Gander Mountain experienced challenging traffic patterns and shifts in consumer demand resulting from increased direct-to-customer sales by key vendors and accelerated growth of e-commerce,” the company stated in a release. “Despite aggressive actions to improve the efficiency of the company’s retail operations and support functions, the underlying financial impact from under-performing stores and unproductive, excess inventory hampered efforts to create a sustainable path forward.”

The company performed a strategic review and came to three conclusions.

• A narrowly focused and lower cost operating model is necessary to position the company for profitable growth.

•The company does not have the financial capacity or time to reset its operations to fully implement the new model.

•The best available path forward is to sell the company on a going-concern basis.

“The company expects to conduct normal business operations during the pendency of its restructuring,” according to the press release. “Employee pay will continue to arrive on time and in full, employee benefits will remain in place, retirement accounts are intact and protected. As a product of the company’s strategic review, 32 under-performing retail locations will begin a shutdown process in the next several weeks.”

Jason Smith is a reporter at The Valdosta Daily Times. He can be contacted at 229-244-3400 ext.1256.