Broadway Stores — BrandWiki

Broadway Stores

Overview

Broadway Stores, Inc.

trading name	Broadway Stores
former name	Broadway-Hale Stores (1950–1974) Carter Hawley Hale Stores (1974–1994)
type	Public
industry	Retail
genre	Department Stores
fate	Company was sold to Federated Department Stores
predecessor	The Broadway Hale’s
successor	Macy's
founded	1950 as Broadway-Hale Stores in Los Angeles
founder	Arthur Letts, Sr.
defunct	October 12, 1995
hq location city	Los Angeles, California
hq location country	US
area served	United States
key people	Edward W. Carter, Prentis C. Hale, Philip M. Hawley
num employees	20,200
num employees year	1995
divisions	The Broadway (1950–1995) Weinstock's (1950–1995) Hale's (1950–1967) Wanamaker's (1978-1987) Emporium-Capwell (1970–1995) Bergdorf Goodman (1972-1987) Neiman Marcus (1969-1987)
website	None

Broadway Stores, Inc., was an American Holding company of department stores based in Southern California. Known through its history as Carter Hawley Hale Stores and Broadway Hale Stores over time, it acquired other retail store chains in regions outside its California home base and became in certain retail sectors a regional and national retailer in the 1970s and 1980s. The company was able to survive takeover attempts in 1984 and 1986, and also a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in 1991 by selling off most of its assets until August 1995 when its banks refused to advance enough additional credit in order for the company to be able to pay off suppliers. At that point, the company sold itself to Federated Department Stores for $1.6 billion (~$ in ) with the acquisition being completed on October 12, 1995.

History

Early history

In 1950, as Los Angeles began to grow in population very rapidly and assumed dominance within the state, the fast-growing The Broadway department stores based there negotiated an all-stock merger with Hale Bros. Stores, Inc. Edward W. Carter, president of The Broadway, became the president of Broadway-Hale Stores.

The newly enlarged company began to grow aggressively with its Broadway stores expanding south to San Diego in 1961 and east to Phoenix, Arizona, in 1968.

1990s and the end

From its heights in 1984 as the sixth-largest department store chain firm in the United States, CHH fell into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1991.[42][43] Besides the financial problems of surviving the 1980s era of hostile takeovers, the main California department store business had faltered because of increasing competition from Nordstrom.

In 1992, after one and one-half years of bankruptcy negotiations, financier Sam Zell and his Zell/Chilmark Fund completed the reorganization of the newly renamed Broadway Stores, Inc., taking a 75 percent stake.[44] The company finally emerged from bankruptcy in October 1992 and Hawley promptly announced his retirement.[45] In early 1993, the three Utah-based Weinstock's stores were closed and the store leases were sold to Mervyns,[46] Dillard's,[47] and ZCMI.[48]

After the takeover by Zell, Hawley was replaced as CEO by David Dworkin.[49] Dworkin tried to slow the outward flow of cash from the company by remodeling stores and streamlining operations.[50] In June 1994, the shareholders of Carter Hawley Hale Stores, Inc. voted to change the name of the company to Broadway Stores, Inc.[51] to symbolize a change in the ailing company, but it was too late to make a difference.

The final blow came on August 8, 1995, when the firm's lenders announced they would not advance the company any additional funds – which were needed to pay suppliers for new, as well as existing inventory.[52][53] A week later, the firm announced its sale to Federated Department Stores which effectively marked the beginning of the end to the remnant nameplates that the stores had operated under.[54][55]

The newly streamlined company was short-lived, however. In August 1995, Federated Department Stores agreed to acquire Broadway Stores. The acquisition was completed on October 12. The chain was dissolved in 1996 as Federated consolidated the former Broadway, Emporium and Weinstock's stores, along with its own Macy's California and Bullock's chains (acquired in 1994),[56] to form Macy's West.[57] Several duplicative units were sold to Sears or shuttered, while Federated also used the real estate of five stores (Emporium-Capwell Stanford Shopping Center, Broadway Sherman Oaks Fashion Square, Broadway Century City Shopping Center, Broadway Beverly Center, and Broadway Fashion Island Newport Beach) to finally bring its Bloomingdale's chain to the West Coast.[58]

On September 28, 2006, Emporium-Capwell's Market Street flagship was redeveloped to house another Bloomingdale's location as well as an expansion of the adjoining shopping center Westfield San Francisco Centre.[59] In addition, the one-time CHH Corporate Offices in the former Superior Oil Company Building at 550 South Flower Street in Los Angeles, right next door to The California Club (of which Carter and Hawley were members), were converted into a three-star boutique hotel called "The Standard."[60]