Its product categories include athletic footwear and apparel, and sport-lifestyle inspired accessories. The Direct-to-Customers segment sells athletic footwear, apparel, and equipment, through its affiliates, including Eastbay, Inc.
In , the F. Woolworth Company purchased the Kinney Shoe Corporation and operated it as a subsidiary. Woolworth also diversified its portfolio of specialty stores in the s, including Afterthoughts, Northern Reflections, Rx Place, and Champs Sports. By , the company was pursuing an aggressive strategy of multiple specialty store formats targeted at enclosed shopping malls. The idea was that if a particular concept failed at a given mall, the company could quickly replace it with a different concept.
Woolworth Company incorporated a separate company called the Woolworth Corporation in the state of New York. One of its first moves was the acquisition of Champs Sports and to rename itself the Woolworth Athletic Group.
During the s and s, the F. With stock prices on the wane, the board recognized the need for change, and, in , named outsider Edward F. Gibbons president. Gibbons in turn named W. Robert Harris the first president of the U. Woolworth and Woolco Division. Also in , Harris became president and Gibbons became chief executive officer.
While Woolco continued its sluggish growth and Woolworth stores suffered neglect, F. In , Woolworth opened the first J. Brannam, a men's clothing store whose name stood for "just brand names. Brannam was a quick moneymaker and often stood within or beside otherwise lackluster Woolco department stores. No matter how much the management tinkered, the problems of Woolco refused to go away.
Albright to revive the ailing chain. Albright, who had come from competitor Dayton Hudson's Target stores, had a plan to revive Woolco, but company projections still saw the stores losing money. Analysts, however, were pleased with the company that remained. Woolco's closing, however, left 28 of the 41 J. Brannam outlets homeless. Edward F. Gibbons died suddenly in October Contrary to expectations and much to the chagrin of younger talent, the board named company veteran John W.
Bud Lynn chief executive officer. As a variety store man, Lynn paid close attention to Woolworth's. He changed merchandise, reducing the number of high-priced items such as appliances and dresses and expanding basic lines like candy, and health and beauty aids. He arranged stores in arrow patterns to cut down on unprofitable corners. Lynn pushed the company to adopt a set of strategic priorities that angled Woolworth away from money-losing businesses and toward specialty retailing.
Lynn retired in , and the board named Harold Sells as the new chief executive officer. Sells continued to push Woolworth's profitable mall-based specialty operations. Managers sought out new ideas for stores, and those that the company liked were tried. If the stores were profitable, Woolworth's opened more. If they were not profitable, the company tried another idea at the same location. In , Woolworth opened stores and closed The latter two sold a full 20 percent of all brand-name athletic footwear in the United States in the late s.
The 40 types of specialty stores included After Thoughts, seller of costume jewelry and handbags; Champs, seller of athletic goods and apparel; and Woolworth Express, seller of the fastest-moving goods of a traditional Woolworth. In , Sells retired and was replaced as by CFO William Lavin, who quickly made moves toward the elimination of the company's general merchandise stores in favor of an exclusive focus on specialty formats. Along with the nearly 1, stores, about 13, jobs were eliminated.
These radical moves were barely complete when an accounting scandal arose in early , revolving around alleged false reporting of quarterly results during Several lawsuits were filed which were eventually combined into a class-action lawsuit. This suit appeared to be settled by mid when Woolworth agreed to make undisclosed cash payments to affected shareholders. Farah, a longtime department store manager who had most recently been president of R. Consequently, Farah's first task was to improve cash flow in Two other Canadian chains, Karuba and Canary Island, were also closed during the year.
In , Woolworth continued to restructure. All told, 1, unproductive stores were disposed of in and In the midst of these moves, institutional investor Greenway Partners forced to a vote a shareholder proposal to spin off Woolworth's Athletic Group, which included the profitable and growing Foot Locker and Champs chains.
However, the plan was soundly defeated. Unlike his predecessor, Farah was not ready to give up on the neglected Woolworth's chain.
To better monitor and plan sales, point-of-sale equipment was installed at all locations in , and purchasing, pricing policies, and promotional strategies were all centralized. He assembled a management team of veterans of successful high volume specialty stores and streamlined merchandising systems.
In , the chain began testing new formats featuring higher-quality and higher-priced merchandise, with more brand names. Based on customer surveys, the prototype stores were aimed at the time-pressed and budget-minded working woman looking for products for herself, her home, and her family.
So, rather than carrying everything from hamsters to beach chairs, the product mix included more cosmetics and housewares. The antiquated lunch counters were replaced by small coffee bars.
The three-store test was successful enough to justify an expansion of the test to 13 more stores in The company appeared to be on track with the paring back of its unwieldy portfolio of retail formats. Farah began piecing together a sporting goods conglomerate on the foundation of Foot Locker and Champs Sports, acquiring the operations of Sporting Goods, Athletic Fibers, and Eastbay Inc.
Woolworth and Eastbay planned to develop catalogs for such Woolworth retail brands as Foot Locker and Champs. The company planned to convert about of the Woolworth's locations to Foot Locker, Champs Sports, and other specialty formats. The German stores were sold off in The company also announced that it planned to change its name, according to company literature, "to better reflect its global specialty retailing formats. In the United States, the Venator Group established such stores and remodeled in Financial News.
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