The story of PC Club’s sudden flirt with bankruptcy came to me completely unexpected. Was it really true that PC Club, my employer from a few years back, suddenly vanished into thin air? A handful of frantic calls to a bunch of former associates confirmed the fact, and indeed, they described to me a company exactly as I heard: shuttered, due to filings for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

I found out a few days later that the company reopened, just as suddenly as it closed. Huh?

For those of you not familiar with PC Club – perhaps, the entire eastern half of the United States and the rest of the world – it is a brick-and-mortar computer builder and parts store, that includes a full-service (and highly skilled) repair department inside each location. It added a second online store, ClubIT.com, to its portfolio some time ago, and the site appears to specifically target Newegg.

When I heard of the company’s closing-but-not, I was saddened: My experiences with PC Club staff are consistently positive, and everyone I meet is smart, witty, and passionate in at least a couple areas of their job. The men and women that I worked with were not your run-of-the-mill computer “experts,” – yes, I am saying that mockingly, because I profited greatly from their customers in my days as an IT consultant – but often savvy aficionados that could talk your ear off if you let them, yet still remain accessible to the average customer. To this day I often spontaneously drop by to catch up with old friends, and usually I end up finding myself wrapped up in hour-to-two-hour conversations spread out between the staffs’ bouts of (warm) customer service.  I knew the company was struggling, but I had no idea that it was this much.

Things were not so rosy, however, at the company’s City of Industry headquarters: PC Club’s corporate half has always possessed the typical business cast of characters, as well as a strange, if somewhat unrelenting and shrewd, sense of creativity – but by and large the company seemed able to deal with the curveballs that business pitched its way. It was, until recently, growing a business of brick-and-mortar stores in a world where “the new hotness” was to buy online – the executives must have been doing something right, wouldn’t you think?

But rumors persisted, and contacts with interesting stories seemed to come out of the woodwork once I started looking. A wide range of people – employees, vendors, ex-employees – seemingly came out of nowhere, each sporting wilder stories than the one before him. Lots of rumors, very little confirmed fact. What’s going on?

I had a bigger question in mind, however: who exactly is NAOC Holdings? The company’s website is bare, and short of a smattering of stock imagery and cryptic company tidbits, tells me nothing of who the it is or what its motivations are – aside from an achievement in building an unnamed “leading, China-focused” home appliance conglomerate. Searching United States court, trademark, and a handful of state incorporation databases yield nothing, and Google searches for the company’s name show only discussions relating to PC Club. The best I can conclude is that it’s some kind of capital firm that seems to deal a lot which Chinese businesses (PC Club was founded by a Taiwanese man and much of the company’s corporate staff appear to be Asian as well). I’ve been able to get in touch with someone who says they can help me  better understand NAOC, but unfortunately, none of that is ready for print yet. We shall see.

The good news is that regardless of NAOC’s mysterious history, it appears that PC Club is back in business – and I’m sure there are lots of relieved techies like me, who were not looking forward to telling friends that their warranties were no longer good on a computer they purchased at our recommendation. Hopefully, the company is here to stay.

If you are reading this and can confirm any of the wild rumors floating around, or have insight into PC Club’s story, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to contact me if you feel like sharing.