COLUMBUS, Ohio — In a notice to the state Thursday, Big Lots announced it's terminating 555 employees at its Columbus-based headquarters at 4900 East Dublin Granville Rd. The mass layoffs will take place the week of Dec. 29 and will be complete in April, the notice states. 

The notice came the same day Big Lots announced plans to close more than 900 locations across the country and hold going-out-business sales. The closures are the result of a fallout with Nexus Capital Management, wherein they failed to reach a deal to get Big Lots out of bankruptcy.

“We all have worked extremely hard and have taken every step to complete a going concern sale,” Big Lots President and CEO Bruce Thorn said in a statement. “While we remain hopeful that we can close an alternative going concern transaction, in order to protect the value of the Big Lots estate, we have made the difficult decision to begin the going-out-of-business process.”

The chain filed for bankruptcy in September and started announcing store closures back in October, when 400 more Ohio-based employees were laid off after the chain decided to shut down the Columbus-based Distribution Center on Phillipi Road.

The retailer has been around for 57 years but has been dealing with high inflation and other challenges. Big Lots went from having 1,400 locations in its prime to less than a thousand currently. The company said it plans to serve customers while it continues to try to make a deal with Nexus or another party.