Goody's, the low-priced apparel chain that operates 282 stores in the Southeast, will be liquidating its entire operation. The company has 10,000 employees.

Goody's had no choice but to liquidate after it couldn't work out a restructuring plan with its creditors. The company has been operating under bankruptcy protection since June.

Goody's is now seeking bids to liquidate its inventory and other assets, and will likely be holding going out of business sales very soon.

The company also earns the distinction of being the first major liquidation announcement of 2009. Regardless of how quickly a recovery comes, there will likely be many more like it over the next few months. The winners of all these specialty discount retailers bankruptcies are stores like Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and Target (NYSE: TGT). Goody's was probably a pretty feeble competitor even in its prime but the big box stores now have less competition than ever in the affordable clothing department.

Goody's Family Clothing, a retailer of lower priced clothing, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week. To this end, the company will shut down 103 stores (about a quarter of the total) as well as a distribution center. Goody's is located primarily in the southeast and has been around since 1953.

It was back in 2005 that Robert Goodfriend (the son of the founder of Goody's) agreed to a $327 million buyout (the private equity sponsors included Prentice Capital Management and GMM Capital). Unfortunately, since then Goody's has been consistently losing money -- perhaps because of the heavy debt load and competition from the like Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). According to the bankruptcy filing, the company has $313 million in assets and $443 million in debt.

Actually, there have been a variety of recent bankrutpcies for retailers, such as Lillian Vernon Corp., Linens 'n Things Inc., Sharper Image and Levitz Furniture Inc. And, as the economy continues to slow down, I'm sure we'll see more.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.