Bluestem, parent company of Fingerhut, to close St. Cloud hub

ST. CLOUD – Bluestem Operating Co., the Minnesota-based parent company for a handful of online retail brands including Fingerhut, plans to close its distribution center in St. Cloud, resulting in 118 layoffs before the end of the year.

The layoffs, made public Wednesday when the company sent mandated notices to the state, include jobs related to administration, credit collection and distribution.

The layoffs will take place over two phases beginning Oct. 26 and ending Nov. 14. Robert Warshauer, chief executive of Bluestem, said in the letter he anticipates the facility will remain open through the notice period, after which a “closure process will follow.”

Bluestem operates out of a large warehouse in an industrial area on the west side of St. Cloud.

“Anytime you’re losing jobs, it’s an unfortunate thing,” St. Cloud Mayor Jake Anderson said Wednesday. “There’s a lot of competition with online retailers and added pressures with the unknowns on tariffs.”

The layoffs come just six months after Bluestem announced cuts to half of its Eden Prairie workforce.

In February, the company notified the state of a reorganization that resulted in layoffs of 117 of its 228 employees at the Eden Prairie headquarters. On Wednesday, Bluestem announced an additional 19 layoffs in Eden Prairie.

Fingerhut was once a giant in the mail-order catalog business. It differentiated itself from other businesses by having customers make monthly payments, basically the equivalent of today’s “buy now, pay later.”

In 2002, Fingerhut’s parent company, Federated Department Stores, announced it was closing operations in St. Cloud and cutting nearly 2,700 jobs. That same year, the retailer was bought by Tom Petters, who was later convicted of running one of the nation’s largest and most complex Ponzi schemes.

In 2020, Bluestem filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection but continued operations. No one from the company returned a request for comment.