The first major Bradlees store closings came in 1988, when it exited the Southern United States. Bradlees remained profitable into the early 1990s. In 1992, a year after its parent company becoming public once again, Stop & Shop Inc. sold Bradlees to an investment group and the chain continued as a separate company. By 1994, the company was unprofitable after attempting to open a bunch of new stores in New Jersey and New York. After losing money for 2 years, Bradlees had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 1995 and closed down some underperforming stores, (including its only two stores in the state of RI) in 1996. Some of these were turned into Ames.