• Countdown to a Claire's Stores bankruptcy filing. Lazard Ltd. ($LAZ) has been hired.
• Countdown to a Nine West Holdings Inc. bankruptcy filing in March.
• Countdown to a FirstEnergy Solutions default in April.
• iHeartMedia Inc. continues its slow crawl towards bankruptcy.
• Remington Outdoor Company Inc., the private equity owned (Cerberus Capital Management LP) firearm manufacturer clearly isn't benefitting from #MAGA! Indeed, President Obama's constant (yet empty) threats to the gun manufacturing industry helped drive considerable gun sales. President Trump's coziness with the industry, however, is failing to juice demand. And, therefore, the company has hired Lazard Ltd. ($LAZ) to explore balance sheet restructuring options. Is it us or is Lazard absolutely dominating?
• We're getting tired of writing about Sears Holding Corp.'s ($SHLD) announcements and downgrades...but, there was another. Downgrade. Not much farther down to go.
• Discount retailer Stein Mart Inc. ($SMRT) has hired advisors (paywall) as it falls further into distressed territory.
• Tops Holding LLC earned itself a downgrade. Apollo Capital Management-owned Fresh Market, meanwhile, announced that it is pulling all of its planned new store openings in 2018. We're old enough to remember when grocery stores were supposed to be salvation for malls. Curious.

And, finally, this week we should see the bankruptcy filings of Patriot National Inc. and Cenveo Inc.