• by Sarah Mahoney , Staff Writer, Yesterday

Bed Bath & Beyond keeps adding unexpected chapters to its unlikely resurrection story. The company has announced the first 22 locations for its dual-branded concept combining Bed Bath & Beyond with The Container Store, with locations ranging from New York, Chicago, the Southeast and California. The company also said it would buy Fathom, a technology-driven real estate services platform operating across dozens of U.S. markets that integrates residential brokerage, mortgage, title, insurance and software products on a proprietary cloud-based platform. The deal is reported to cost $53 million.

If attempting to take on giants like Zillow and Redfin seems like the ultimate zig to most retailers' zag, the Nashville-based holding company says the purchase makes sense for the company it wants to become. It's organizing around an "Everything Home" vision built on three pillars. First, that includes omnichannel commerce, already offered through Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock.com, BuyBuy Baby and The Container Store. Next comes home services, the world of closet installation and custom-designed it entered with the $150 million acquisition of the Container Store earlier this year. And with Fathom, it is moving into the third leg: home ownership and transactions.

"Home ownership is one of the most important financial and emotional commitments people make in their lives," said Marcus Lemonis, the company's CEO, in a statement. Yet the field remains fragmented, with people buying homes from one company, financing them through another, furnishing them from various retailers, and renovating with others. The company believes it can be the one-stop shop that changes that.

While it might seem an unlikely next step for a company that only emerged from a highly publicized bankruptcy in 2023, others are taking notice. Wedbush Securities, which has initiated coverage and believes the stock will outperform its peers, says observers continue to view Bed Bath & Beyond as a declining ecommerce operator while missing what analyst Michael Piccolo writes is "a credible path to about $3 billion in annualized revenue and meaningful cross-pillar synergies." Its current stock price, he adds, "does not remotely reflect the platform's long-term earnings potential."

For now, physical stores remain the company's most visible story. The new dual-branded locations combine bedding, bath, kitchen and home essentials with The Container Store's expertise in organization, custom spaces and in-home services -- including custom closets, design services and installation. Plans call for adding cabinetry, flooring and broader home improvement solutions over time.

"Our customers don't think about their homes in categories," said Lemonis. "For decades, customers have had to visit multiple retailers, websites and service providers to complete a single home project: one company for bedding, another for storage, another for closets, another for installation. That model no longer works. We believe the future belongs to businesses that solve complete customer problems."