Southeastern Grocers
Southeastern Grocers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March of 2018, but it wasn’t the first time. By 2010 the company survived its first bankruptcy filing. As one of America’s largest private companies, it runs BI-LO, Harveys, Fresco y Más, and Winn-Dixie grocery stores, with most of its stores located in the southeastern states, as the name implies.
However, the company formerly went by the name B-Lo Holdings until a 2013 restructuring move changed the Jacksonville, Florida-based company to Southeastern Grocers. As it emerges from its second bankruptcy filing, store closures are a big part of the company’s financial restructuring.
Abercrombie & Fitch
In its heyday, Abercrombie & Fitch epitomized the brand appeal the under-30 crowd longed to don. Since then, A&F seems to have met its descent toward “just okay.” In all, 475 A&F stores have shut their doors in the past eight years. The closures include Hollister, a brand A&F owns. The massive downsizing of stores and square footage extends to a new growth model. After closing 40 standard stores, 40 new, smaller, “more intimate” stores and kiosks opened.
The store closure announcement followed a disappointing sales growth and future sales outlook report. The company owns 850 stores throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Of those, the Hollister four-story mega-store in New York’s SoHo neighborhood is being closed. It’s not the only flagship store scheduled for closure. The Hong Kong store is slated to be gone, as well as the large A&F flagship stores in Milan, Fukuoka, Japan, and Copenhagen. According to Forbes, CFO Scott Lipsky said that the remaining 15 flagship stores burden financial results. Bigger is not always better now that e-tail is in ascendance.
Foot Locker
Foot Locker, another victim of the ongoing ghost-town effect on malls, closed 110 stores in 2018. The Manhattan-based company reported a $49 million net loss that year and scrambled to stop the bleeding by slashing stores.
In sharp contrast to 2018, Foot Locker beat its earnings goals by double in 2019. Billed as a miraculous turnaround, the company saw a 2% rise over 2018, defying the onslaught of the mall-based Retail Apocalypse. The company, founded in 1974 by Woolworth and Kinney Shoes, operates in 28 nations around the world with over 3,000 locations. Its first store opened in California at the Puente Hills Mall. It’s still open today.
Bluestem Brands
A few years back, Moody’s adjusted Bluestem Brands' rating outlook from stable to negative. In 2019 the company was “streamlining” its business. To that end, the company shed six of its thirteen brands. Those laggards include Bedford Fair, Gold Violin, Norm Thompson, Sahalie, The Tog Shop, and Winter Silks.
In exchange, the company focuses on its core brands: Appleseed’s, Blair, Drapers & Damon’s, Haband, and Old Pueblo Trader. According to Lisa Gavales, CEO of Bluestem Brands, “We believe that increased focus in our most productive brands will enable us to drive future sales growth and sustained profitability for not only the Orchard Portfolio but Bluestem as a whole.”
Lands’ End
Lands’ End lost its way. It floundered through an ill-fitting partnership with Sears from 2002 to 2014, it was led astray by former president Federica Marchionni into a trendy high-end parlay, and now, Lands’ End is back home in the steady hands of CEO Jerome Griffith.
New CEO Griffith has achieved growth by prioritizing Lands’ End’s e-tailing division and partnering with Amazon (gasp!). But it’s working. By the end of 2018, Lands’ End reported six straight quarters of sales growth under Griffith’s leadership. The plan was to open up to 60 new stores by 2022 and raise sales by $2 billion.