National: Jan. 12, 2001
Sears, Roebuck & Co. is closing 89 stores, affecting approximately 2,400 employees, after posting a 1.1 percent year-to-year drop in December same-store sales; the Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based chain operates approximately 860 full-line and 2,100 specialty stores and has approximately 275,000 employees; the closings will primarily affect the company’s National Tire & Battery and hardware stores; only four full-line Sears stores are scheduled to be shuttered...Add Warner Bros. to the list of retailers cutting back in the new year; the media conglomerate will close at least eight of its U.S. studio stores by the end of the month, including its flagship store on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue and its outlet in the Beverly Center in Los Angeles, according to a report in The Hollywood Reporter, which also reports that Warner already has shut down its online retail operation and is expected to shutter up to 46 of its 140 specialty retail stores; the report also predicts that The Walt Disney Co. will close some of its underperforming retail stores as well; a Warner spokesperson told the trade paper that the New York flagship store will reopen in the company’s new corporate headquarters building now under construction...A Donna Karan International (DKI) statement saying it will “evaluate” both the recent LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton takeover bid and any other company’s “viable proposal” suggests the company may be hoping that competing suitors will bid its price up; meanwhile, an LVMH spokesperson expressed confidence that the Paris-based luxury-goods conglomerate’s $195 million, or $8.50 cash per share, proposal would be successful; LVMH recently paid $450 million for Gabrielle Studio, which owns the various Karan trademarks and licenses them back to DKI; Gabrielle is privately held by Karan and her husband.
