The company has 59 department stores, including 39 in California, five in Alaska, four in Oregon, two in Nevada and two in Idaho. The Company also operates four "Village East" and "Gottschalks" specialty stores, which carry a limited selection of merchandise, as well as a 420,000 square foot distribution center located in Madera, CA. About half of the company's stores range from 40,000 square feet to 90,000 square feet, with the remainder weighted toward larger stores.

The company's stores are located primarily in diverse, growing, non-major metropolitan or suburban areas in the western US. The Company's department stores are generally anchor tenants of regional shopping malls or strategically located strip centers. The company has historically avoided expansion into the center of major metropolitan areas that are served by the company's larger competitors and has instead sought to open new stores in nearby suburban or secondary market areas.

The bidding ended at 11 p.m. EST. with a consortium of liquidators on top. Gottschalks was to begin notifying its 5,200 employees today about what will happen and the now ubiquitous going-out-of-business sales could begin before the end of the week. The losing bidders were another liquidator and Shandong Commercial Group, a Chinese company that intended to keep performing stores open.

"We tried as hard as we could to make this work with the Shandong people, but there were too many things financially, with the size of the deal, and regulatory issues, that they just couldn't get done in time," Gottschalks CEO James Famalette told the Fresno Bee on Tuesday.

Famalette told the paper that while Gottschalks' merchandise and other assets will be liquidated, he hopes to continue negotiations with Shandong for a post-liquidation revival of Gottschalks in some form. He was unable to discuss details of those talks Monday night, according to the newpaper.

That consortium of liquidators includes SB Capital Group (New York), Tiger Capital Group (Boston), Great American Group (Los Angeles) and Hudson Capital Partners (Newton, MA). The team also conducted the going-out-of-business sales for bankrupt retailers Mervyns and Circuit City, and with others also handled liquidation of Linens N Things. An auction date is expected to be set this week to sell the company's real estate, which includes leaseholds and owned properties.