Word: b
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...shoppers streamed through the B. Altman department store in Manhattan last week, many of them looked wistfully at the lush elegance that surrounded them. The Renaissance-style emporium, completed in 1914 and situated across the street from the Empire State Building at 34th Street and Fifth Avenue, boasts crystal chandeliers and parquet floors, lofty ceilings and broad aisles. B. Altman, with its 124-year-old reputation for quality and gentility, is going out of business. Six of Altman's seven stores, situated mostly in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, will be shuttered next month because its current owners were...
Like other department-store chains, B. Altman has been hurt by weak retail sales and tough competition from specialty outlets. Several other chains are for sale by their foreign owners: Canada's Campeau is trying to unload Bloomingdale's, while Britain's B.A.T Industries has put Saks Fifth Avenue and Marshall Field's on the block. However, Altman's problems went deeper, in part because it had acquired a dowdy, passe image. The company might have been turned around by the right owner, but Herscu, saddled with $1.5 billion in debts, had neither the cash nor the vision to pull...
...Nazi labor camp, Herscu immigrated to Australia, made a fortune as a homebuilder and became famous for his flashy style. (His mansion is designed to look like Tara in Gone With the Wind.) He decided that U.S. retailing was a glamorous and growing business, so his Hooker Corp. bought B. Altman and the Bonwit Teller chain, which has grown to 17 stores, for $150 million...
Toward the end, B. Altman was losing more than $4 million a month. Retailing experts estimated that any potential savior would have to spend as much as $100 million to renovate the stores and rebuild basic inventories. Stock had become severely depleted during the past year, in part because manufacturers refused to extend credit to the store and withheld clothing shipments. The bankruptcy court put the chain up for sale but decided to liquidate when no acceptable bidders came forward...
Replacing Herscu as L.J. Hooker's chief was Sanford Sigoloff, a turnaround king who says he was not surprised to see B. Altman die. "With so many choice properties on the market, like Bloomingdale's and Saks Fifth Avenue, who would want Altman's? I hate to say the store was old, but it was outmoded." KMO Realty Partners, which now owns Altman's real estate, controls the rights to the store's name. KMO will probably try to make some use of it, perhaps selling it to an apparel maker or retailer, but the B. Altman name will probably...