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Federated to Sell Lord & Taylor
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"The locations aren't conducive to our type of business," he said.
Lord & Taylor's biggest location is the flagship, 611,000-square-foot, free-standing store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, but most of its stores are smaller than 150,000 square feet. By contrast, Macy's operations include 92 stores from Maine to Virginia that cover nearly 23 million square feet -- about 250,000 square feet per store.
Federated had previously announced it would also sell May's bridal division this year, which includes David's Bridal and After Hours Formalwear, to allow the company to focus on department stores and the Macy's and Bloomingdale's brands.
The Hecht's nameplate is scheduled to change this fall, Federated officials have said. The store at Westfield Shoppingtown Wheaton will be shut down and the free-standing store in Friendship Heights will be converted into a Bloomingdale's.
Several dozen former May stores across the country will hold "going-out-of-business" sales at the end of the month. Federated plans to eliminate jobs, most of them administrative, by March 1. The company hopes to save $175 million this year through the cuts and $450 million next year.
For Kathryn Martin of Reston, however, the savings come at a cost, albeit a small one. She was at the Lord & Taylor at Tysons Corner yesterday to buy a wooden nutcracker. She gets them at the store every year after Christmas, she said.
"I am devastated," Martin said when she heard that the store would be sold.
Investors, however, had a much different reaction to the news. Federated shares rose yesterday by 1.8 percent, or $1.32, to close at $72.95.
Staff writer Elissa Silverman contributed to this report.
