Apparel and footwear retailer Finish Line, responding to poor company-wide sales, is selling the Man Alive chain to the owner of Jimmy Jazz. Man Alive is a 75-store street wear retailer, and is a small piece of Finish Line's business, which has 685 Finish Line stores alone. Jimmy Jazz has roughly 65 outlets and the Man Alive acquisition will "accelerate growth initiatives in the urban market sector faster than we could attain through organic growth alone," stated owner Jimmy Khezrie in a statement.
acquisition: June 2009 Archives
General Motors agreed today to sell its Saab brand to Swedish sports car maker Koenigsegg. The move divests yet another brand from once-mighty GM, which sold Saturn to Penske and Hummer to China's Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company in recent weeks. In addition to GM's dealer closings and plans to shutter the Pontiac brand, the revamped General Motors will be a vastly different firm when it emerges from bankruptcy.
Equally notable, though, is how the divested car lines might fare. Three significant car companies are now held by smaller firms with niche ambitions. This inadvertently trends the auto industry toward pre-1980s merger days, when more small firms had ambitions and opportunities to grow in a splintered market. Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover, AMC/Jeep, Mazda, Nissan, Saab--all were once independent companies with unique identities. While Chrysler may turn into Fiat USA, many other car lines have a chance to creat unique, compelling products. Expect a more competitive and innovative car market over the next decade as these companies start to differentiate themselves.
Categories:
Apparel retailer Talbots is selling the J. Jill line to a capital investment firm. Seventy-five of J. Jill's 279 stores will close as a result of the sale. Talbots is positioning the move as a brand focus maneuver for the parent company, but the brand was sold at a "huge loss," according to the Wall Street Journal, and does not help Talbots' difficult financial situation.
Categories:
The Filene's Basement discount chain has been purchased by Men's Wearhouse, the men's clothier. Men's Wearhouse outbid two other companies, including fellow discount retailer Syms. The buyer is expected to retain roughly 20 of Filene's Basement's 25 existing stores, shutting a few suburban locations.
Filene's Basement has had an interesting run in the past year, from closing a third of its stores to selling itself to a liquidation firm shortly before filing for bankruptcy in May.
