National: Feb. 2, 2001
Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. (PRL) has ended its licensing agreement with Sara Lee Corp. for the manufacture and distribution of its women’s intimate apparel, while extending Sara Lee’s license to continue producing and distributing men’s underwear; Sara Lee, which has held the PRL women’s intimate apparel license since 1996, will discontinue its PRL women’s underwear business after the Spring season...The May Department Store Company, based in St. Louis, Mo., is buying nine department stores from Birmingham, Ala.-based Saks Inc.; five of the stores are Profitt’s in Nashville, Tenn., which May’s Washington, D.C.-based Hecht division will now operate; two of the other stores are in Baton Rouge, La.; one store is in Lafayette, La., and one is in Orlando, Fla.; May’s Houston-based Foley’s division will operate the Louisiana stores and the Orlando store will be operated by May’s New York-based Lord & Taylor division; purchase price is approximately $237 million for the nine stores and $72 million for inventories and accounts receivable...As expected, J.C. Penney Company Inc. has joined the post-holiday-season list of retailers shutting stores and eliminating workers; the Plano-Texas-based company will cut 5,300 jobs and close 47 stores, including 44 department stores and three catalog outlets; about 5,000 in-store jobs will be eliminated; the remainder will be headquarters and regional-office positions; the job cuts will total approximately 2 percent of the Penney’s workforce.
