Retail Industry June 1 - 13, 2009: Closings Plus Openings Don't Equal Recovery

The numbers from U.S. retail industry in the first two weeks of June tell many different stories depending on the bearish or bullish theory that you’re currently trying to support. New store opening figures have outnumbered store closing additions so far, but just as one publicly traded retailer finds 75 million ways to stay in business, rumors swirled around another major apparel brand that is expected to file Chapter 11 papers any day now. When you add them all together, the retail industry numbers so far this month don’t exactly total up to equal “recovery.”

Talbots feels pretty certain that most of its problems have been solved now that it has finally sold its J. Jill brand for $75 million. Golden Gate Capital is the purchaser of 204 J. Jill stores, which reportedly, they will continue to operate. Talbots has actively been trying to unload the J. Jill chain since November, 2008. Talbots’ leaders seem openly and publicly relieved to get those specialty stores off the balance sheet.

To get back on firm financial footing, Talbots will add the remaining 75 J. Jill locations that nobody wants, along with 16 underperforming Talbots operations to the 2009 retail store closings tally. Company leaders expressed confidence that these dramatic moves, coupled with a 20% reduction in its corporate staff, will allow it to focus on bringing Talbots back to profitability. If that means that they are now giving their focus to stocking their stores with relevant clothing that women actually want to wear, then they will definitely be traveling down recovery road.

Golden Gate Capital, by the way, has gobbled up a diverse collection of retail companies in the past five years. It is now the money and the management behind Express, Spiegel, Newport News, and Herbalife, among others. Since many of these companies were in trouble at the time of acquisition, one has to wonder what the Golden Gate leaders know that the original retail leaders couldn’t figure out. Whatever they know, it seems to work equally well for apparel stores, direct mail catalogs, nutritional supplement MLMs and high-tech businesses alike.

Maybe some members of the U.S. retail industry will start looking for some fresh leadership faces on the pages of Golden Gate’s website. Perhaps the current cadre of retail CEOs has been recycled between the major retail organizations quite enough.

Closings of a different kind are being utilized by some retailers who are still struggling to survive... more...