SANTA MONICA—YogaWorks, the yoga chain with 60 studios countrywide filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Wednesday, October 14 due to the financial impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As part of this process, YogaWorks entered into a purchase agreement with Serene Investment Management. Serene will serve as the stalking-horse bidder and has agreed to acquire the YogaWorks digital and education business and intellectual property, according to businesswire.com.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for our industry and business, including mandatory studio closures and social distancing-imposed attendance restrictions even where studios have been permitted to reopen,” said Brian Cooper, Chief Executive Officer of YogaWorks in a press release.

He said that they are expanding to digital platform now offers YogaWorks students over 40 live streaming yoga classes per day and over 1,000 hours of pre-recorded classes and yoga workshops, being taught by the best teachers in the business.

“We have also successfully transformed our world renown teachers training and certification offering for our students and teachers to a virtual environment creating new and exciting revenue opportunities for the Company,” said Cooper.

Cooper proclaimed his appreciation to all the employees and teachers for their commitment and dedication to YogaWorks.

“We are so impressed by the passion and love that our teams have displayed despite the many challenges faced,” Cooper added.

He also thanked the students for their support and patronage.

“We will continue to make decisions that provide the most benefit to our team, students, and partners, and we are confident that we will emerge from this process a stronger organization.”

Maty Ezraty, Chuck Miller and Alan Finger founded the company in 1987,  according to their website, when they opened the first studio on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, they gathered many styles of yoga under one roof, which attracted the best teachers in Southern California.