Shoppers at Henri Bendel’s store on Michigan Avenue had an unpleasant surprise last week: The racks were almost bare of merchandise.
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Bendel’s parent, The Limited Inc., already has announced plans to shutter five of six Bendel’s outlets, including the giant one in the Bloomingdale’s building. But that latter store is supposed to remain open through the summer, so the lack of spring duds was a downer.
New goods are flowing already, says David Bernstein, president of Schottenstein/Bernstein Capital Group, the Columbus, Ohio-based retail liquidation firm that has been hired by The Limited to run the Bendel’s store here.
The store is receiving daily shipments of spring merchandise from four Bendel’s stores that were closed in Boston; Troy, Mich.; Columbus, Ohio; and Paramus, N.J. “I’m going to be running some fantastic sales on that merchandise,” promises Bernstein, who took over management of the store last week.
On the store’s third floor, he is creating a “Henri Bendel’s Best Buys” department where prior-season designer merchandise will be marked down at least 50 percent.
But don’t look for big “going out of business” signs at the 900 N. Michigan Ave. store. That declasse look doesn’t sit well with the landlord of the tony building. Instead, Schottenstein is limiting itself to newspaper ads touting Bendel’s bargains.
Bernstein says his firm is well-versed in the niceties of liquidating an upscale retailer. After all, Schottenstein has presided over the final chapters in the storied histories of Bonwit Teller and B. Altman.
For an image-conscious retailer, only a classy send-off will do.
Dig deeper: It’s nice to have a parent with deep pockets, whether you’re a teenager with social plans or a struggling multibillion-dollar corporation. Spiegel Inc. knows that well. It’s again dipping into the pockets of its largest shareholder, the Michael Otto family of Germany.
Late last month, the Downers Grove-based catalog and retail company said it had issued 13.5 million additional shares of the company’s Class B stock to the Otto family, raising $70 million for capital needs. A large share of those funds will be going toward opening 50 to 60 new Eddie Bauer stores during 1998.
Spiegel did the same thing about a year ago, raising the same amount of money from the Ottos for the same purpose.
The Otto family doesn’t really need the extra shares. It already owns 99.9 percent of Spiegel’s Class B stock, which is the only stock with voting rights.
Spiegel certainly needs the dough. It has lost money for the past three years, and a turnaround is not yet in sight. But expanding Eddie Bauer right now may not be such a good idea. Its same-store sales skidded 10 percent in March on top of an 11 percent decline in February.
With those kinds of numbers, lying low might be a better strategy.
No deal: The tentative deal First Chicago NBD Corp. had to sell its 605 N. Michigan Ave. building has fallen through, sources close to the deal said this week.
As previously reported, Jamestown, a German investment company, had agreed to pay $35 million for the property, which houses a Bigsby & Kruthers store and Florsheim Shoe Shop.
The building is now back on the market. But with the $30 billion merger announced last week between First Chicago NBD and Banc One Corp., a new deal may find itself on the back burner.
Cutting edge: More than 130 garments created by fashion design students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago will be presented in two fashion shows on Thursday, May 7. Advance tickets are $20 for the 2 p.m. matinee and $25 for the 7 p.m. performance.
Well-known designers who have shown their early work as Art Institute students include Halston, Gemma Kahng, Maria Pinto and Cynthia Rowley.