Party City is closing down all of its stores, ending nearly 40 years in business, CNN has learned. CEO Barry Litwin told corporate employees Friday in a meeting viewed by CNN that Party City is “winding down” operations immediately and that today will be their last day of employment.

The company will put its assets up for bidding or, if there's no sale, "initiate store closing sales to liquidate all of the Party City Group Companies’ retail and wholesale inv

Party City, once among the top names in party-supply retailers, is going out of business, according to an announcement from CEO Barry Litwin that was viewed by CNN.

Fox owns the PartyWorks store on Caldwell Avenue in Visalia, as well as one in Clovis and two in Fresno, at River Park and on West Shaw. He considers the Party Works bankruptcy as “only to the better because we'll have less competition in our area.”

Steve Fram’s Party City story began in the early 1990s, when he owned his own office supply store in New York.

Party City will be auctioning off the leases for all of its 695 stores in the US ahead of the retail company’s nationwide closure. In late December, the party store mainstay announced that it would be shuttering its doors after 40 years in the states due to high inflation that it couldn’t keep up with that drove customers elsewhere.

Party City is auctioning 21 store leases in North Carolina, including several in the greater Charlotte area, amid the retailer’s plans to close all of its nearly 700 locations after 40 years in business.