Macy’s, Gannett Face Debt Hangover From Buybacks in Good Times
By Sarah Rabil
Macy's Discount Coupon
Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Macy’s Inc., Gannett Co. and New York Times Co.’s attempts to prop up their stocks with debt- funded buybacks have left them saddled with higher borrowing costs as they work to pay off loans.
Standard & Poor’s 500 companies have spent $1.73 trillion on buybacks through September since the fourth quarter of 2004, according to the ratings company. With the U.S. in a recession, the companies face the threat of additional credit-rating downgrades after being punished for the earlier borrowing.
“You had debt-financed share buybacks at a time when the market was good, their businesses were good,” said Edward Henderson, a senior analyst at Moody’s Investors Service in New York. “Then it turned real quickly.”
New York Times, with $1.1 billion in total debt, spent more than $1.8 billion buying shares from 2000 to 2004, enough to have retired all of its borrowings, said Mike Simonton, an analyst at Fitch Ratings in Chicago. Gannett could have paid down most of its long-term debt with the $3.44 billion spent on buybacks since 2004. Macy’s recently renegotiated its bank loans to erase doubts that it could repay loans due next year.
S&P cut the New York Times’ debt rating three levels to a BB- junk grade in October and has a negative outlook on the company, signaling further reductions are possible. A $400 million credit line is due in May.
To raise cash, the New York-based newspaper publisher slashed its dividend by almost three-fourths and is pursuing a $225 million sale-leaseback of its headquarters. It’s also trying to sell its 17.5 percent stake in the company that owns the Boston Red Sox baseball team, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
Trimming Buybacks
The company paid as much as $44.83 a share on average for its stock in 2003, according to filings. That is more than six times the current price. New York Times has reduced buybacks to about $110.5 million in total in the last four years to offset dilution from employee stock options, spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said in an interview.
Gannett, the largest U.S. newspaper publisher, had to draw on unsecured revolving credit in October to repay commercial paper. The McLean, Virginia-based publisher’s debt rating has slid six levels since 2000 to BBB-, one step above junk.
The company, which also operates TV stations, offered to purchase $750 million of notes maturing in May for 95 cents on the dollar. Holders of 13.5 percent of the notes accepted the offer. Spokeswoman Tara Connell didn’t return a phone call seeking comment.
Before lending froze, companies tapped relatively cheap credit to buy back stock and boost sagging share prices and earnings. Investors cheered the moves, at least temporarily.
Home Depot
Record subprime-mortgage defaults dried up lending, the housing slump deepened and investment banks collapsed. Companies that once could handle their debts are struggling as shrinking consumer spending and advertising sales drain their cash.
“The confidence that underwrote companies’ ability to raise debt is gone,” said Harlan Platt, a finance professor at Northeastern University in Boston.
Home Depot Inc., the world’s largest home-improvement retailer, announced plans in June 2007 to repurchase as much as $22.5 billion of its shares, financed by the sale of its HD Supply unit and $12 billion of bonds.
Moody’s cut the Atlanta-based company’s rating four levels to Baa1, the third-lowest investment grade, and S&P lowered it three steps to BBB+. The year before, the retailer had raised $7.6 billion in new borrowing, in part for $8.1 billion in buybacks and dividends.
“Anytime somebody does a debt-financed share repurchase, it uses up room under ratings,” Henderson said.
Home Depot ultimately put the new bond issue on hold and cut the repurchase in half, yet its debt ratings weren’t restored because the buyback authorization remains in place. Spokeswoman Paula Drake declined to comment.
Publishers
Publishers’ shares have dropped as investors focused on the loss of readers, advertisers and revenue to the Internet. New York Times has slid 87 percent since a peak of $52.79 in 2002, and Gannett is down 92 percent since its high in 2004.
“Companies failed to switch gears quickly enough, underestimating how much the shift of dollars to the Web would accelerate,” Ken Doctor, a media analyst at the consulting firm Outsell Inc. in Burlingame, California, said in an e-mail.
With credit tight, buybacks slowed last quarter to $89.7 billion, down from the record $172 billion spent a year earlier, S&P data show. The S&P 500 Index has tumbled 44 percent since peaking at 1565.15 on Oct. 9, 2007.
Macy’s, the second-largest U.S. department-store company, announced a more flexible bank-credit agreement on Dec. 17 to quell doubts about its ability to meet next year’s debt maturities. The retailer’s shares have declined 77 percent in two years.
Macy Buybacks
The company repurchased $3.32 billion of stock last year, contributing to a $1.24 billion increase in long-term debt and 2007 interest costs that rose by more than a third to $543 million. S&P rates Macy’s debt BBB-, the lowest investment grade, and is considering a cut.
Macy’s hasn’t purchased any shares this year and doesn’t plan to in 2009, according to filings.
“Early in 2008 we said that we would stop our share repurchase program so that we could conserve cash,” said spokesman Jim Sluzewski.
With holiday sales projected to be the worst in 40 years, retailers may close 73,000 stores in the first half of 2009, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers in New York. At least a dozen U.S. retailers have entered bankruptcy this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“Bottom line, I think a lot of companies pushed the envelope too far,” said Nicholas Riccio, managing director for corporate ratings at S&P in New York. “It’s one thing to leverage up a little. It’s another thing to leverage up too far.”
Monday, December 29, 2008
Saks, Macy’s Discounts Spark Vendor Spat After Holiday Slump
Saks, Macy’s Discounts Spark Vendor Spat After Holiday Slump
By Cotten Timberlake
Macy's Discount Coupon
Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Clothing makers, balking at the deep holiday discounts offered by retailers such as Macy’s Inc., may force department stores to eat more of the markdowns.
Liz Claiborne Inc., HMS Productions Inc. and a raft of apparel companies plan to push back at the retailers who have slashed some prices by 70 percent amid what’s shaping up as the worst holiday shopping season in four decades.
“We’re asking department stores for concessions,” said Lou Breuning, president of New York-based HMS, which sells Spence blouses at Dillard’s Inc. and Cable & Gauge knits through Macy’s. “I don’t want to take the stores’ margin from A to Z but certainly from B to C.”
Higher-end department stores such as Nordstrom Inc. and Macy’s might capitulate to a maintained profit margin of 35 percent in meetings next month, down from the common practice of vendors guaranteeing 40 percent, said Liz Dunn, a retail analyst with Thomas Weisel Partners LLC in New York. More moderately priced chains, like J.C. Penney Co. and Kohl’s Corp., might agree to 30 percent, down from an estimated 35 percent, she said.
If vendors succeed, they could recoup $1.2 billion from Macy’s, Penney, Kohl’s, Nordstrom, Dillard’s and Saks Inc. alone, based on analysts’ average estimated fourth-quarter sales of $24.2 billion for those six chains.
Sharing Discounts
Apparel manufacturers and department stores will meet before the retail fiscal year ends on Jan. 31 to determine how to split discount costs. Vendors, as is customary, pledged six to nine months ago to compensate retailers for price cuts needed to sell their goods with so-called markdown dollars.
Department-store owners typically set discounts with input from their suppliers and in previous years have had leverage in passing on markdown costs. This time, the retailers may be willing to shoulder more of the burden to help keep vendors solvent, said Michael Appel, a managing director at Quest Turnaround Advisors LLC, a Purchase, New York-based firm that provides crisis management services to retailers.
“Their results are going to be so bad anyway, it’s not going to make much difference,” said Appel, who sits on the board of women’s clothing chain Charming Shoppes Inc.
Brands owned by Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. and Estee Lauder Cos., as well as other vendors in exclusive deals with chains, will carry more weight in negotiations because the retailers depend on them more, he said.
Shrinking Margins
During November and December, sales at U.S. stores open at least 12 months probably declined as much as 2 percent, the International Council of Shopping Centers predicted Dec. 23. That would be largest drop since at least 1969, when the New York-based trade group started tracking data.
Retailers had gained sway over vendors through consolidation, notably after Macy’s bought May Department Stores Co. in 2005, creating a chain of more than 800 locations. Apparel makers’ earnings before interest and taxes shrank from a peak of 11.5 percent of sales in 2006 to 10.3 percent this year and could narrow to 9.5 percent in 2009, according to J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. analyst Evren Dogan Kopelman.
Meanwhile, Macy’s gross margin -- earnings left after subtracting the cost of goods sold -- widened to 39.5 percent in the third quarter from 39.3 percent the year earlier. Liz Claiborne’s gross margin for sales to department stores shrank in the third quarter. The clothier wouldn’t say by how much.
Department stores have gone beyond “what the markdown rate ought to be,” Liz Claiborne Chief Executive Officer Bill McComb said on a Nov. 11 conference call. “There’s no way that every vendor is going to be paying 100 percent of their liabilities here.”
Macy’s, Saks
Macy’s is New York-based Liz Claiborne’s biggest wholesale customer, accounting for 11 percent, or about $400 million, of its total 2007 sales. Liz Claiborne’s allowance for discounts that year was $74 million. Liz Claiborne spokeswoman Dana Stambaugh said the company had no comment for this story.
Saks put new fall fashions on sale in September at 40 percent off, McComb said in November. Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus Group Inc. offered what he called “extraordinary” markdowns. This month, Macy’s is advertising discounts of 20 percent to 65 percent. Representatives of New York-based Saks and of Macy’s, based in Cincinnati, declined to comment.
“The vendors have been absorbing the majority of the impact, and we’re at the point that they are really hurting,” Thomas Weisel’s Dunn said.
The Standard & Poor’s Supercomposite Apparel and Accessories Index dropped 44 percent this year before today. New York-based Liz Claiborne is the biggest decliner in the group of 19 companies, having lost 89 percent of its market value in 2008.
‘Good Partnerships’
“Both sides will be trying to come to the right point of view here,” Macy’s Chief Financial Officer Karen Hoguet said in a Nov. 12 conference call. “We believe passionately in maintaining good partnerships and we’ll do that. But part of that is having us help each other out.”
In October, Jones Apparel Group Inc. Chief Financial Officer John McClain blamed the “highly promotional retail environment” for an erosion in adjusted third-quarter operating margin. Operating income as a percentage of sales at the New York-based maker of Anne Klein clothes and Nine West shoes narrowed to 6.1 percent from 8.5 percent last year, the company reported.
J.P. Morgan estimated that earnings before interest and taxes at Jones Apparel could shrink to 4.4 percent this year and 3.8 percent in 2009. At Jones Apparel, discount allowances were $90 million last year. The company had no comment for this story.
“The retailers call it a partnership,” Quest Turnaround’s Appel said. “The vendors see it more as a one-way street.”
By Cotten Timberlake
Macy's Discount Coupon
Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Clothing makers, balking at the deep holiday discounts offered by retailers such as Macy’s Inc., may force department stores to eat more of the markdowns.
Liz Claiborne Inc., HMS Productions Inc. and a raft of apparel companies plan to push back at the retailers who have slashed some prices by 70 percent amid what’s shaping up as the worst holiday shopping season in four decades.
“We’re asking department stores for concessions,” said Lou Breuning, president of New York-based HMS, which sells Spence blouses at Dillard’s Inc. and Cable & Gauge knits through Macy’s. “I don’t want to take the stores’ margin from A to Z but certainly from B to C.”
Higher-end department stores such as Nordstrom Inc. and Macy’s might capitulate to a maintained profit margin of 35 percent in meetings next month, down from the common practice of vendors guaranteeing 40 percent, said Liz Dunn, a retail analyst with Thomas Weisel Partners LLC in New York. More moderately priced chains, like J.C. Penney Co. and Kohl’s Corp., might agree to 30 percent, down from an estimated 35 percent, she said.
If vendors succeed, they could recoup $1.2 billion from Macy’s, Penney, Kohl’s, Nordstrom, Dillard’s and Saks Inc. alone, based on analysts’ average estimated fourth-quarter sales of $24.2 billion for those six chains.
Sharing Discounts
Apparel manufacturers and department stores will meet before the retail fiscal year ends on Jan. 31 to determine how to split discount costs. Vendors, as is customary, pledged six to nine months ago to compensate retailers for price cuts needed to sell their goods with so-called markdown dollars.
Department-store owners typically set discounts with input from their suppliers and in previous years have had leverage in passing on markdown costs. This time, the retailers may be willing to shoulder more of the burden to help keep vendors solvent, said Michael Appel, a managing director at Quest Turnaround Advisors LLC, a Purchase, New York-based firm that provides crisis management services to retailers.
“Their results are going to be so bad anyway, it’s not going to make much difference,” said Appel, who sits on the board of women’s clothing chain Charming Shoppes Inc.
Brands owned by Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. and Estee Lauder Cos., as well as other vendors in exclusive deals with chains, will carry more weight in negotiations because the retailers depend on them more, he said.
Shrinking Margins
During November and December, sales at U.S. stores open at least 12 months probably declined as much as 2 percent, the International Council of Shopping Centers predicted Dec. 23. That would be largest drop since at least 1969, when the New York-based trade group started tracking data.
Retailers had gained sway over vendors through consolidation, notably after Macy’s bought May Department Stores Co. in 2005, creating a chain of more than 800 locations. Apparel makers’ earnings before interest and taxes shrank from a peak of 11.5 percent of sales in 2006 to 10.3 percent this year and could narrow to 9.5 percent in 2009, according to J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. analyst Evren Dogan Kopelman.
Meanwhile, Macy’s gross margin -- earnings left after subtracting the cost of goods sold -- widened to 39.5 percent in the third quarter from 39.3 percent the year earlier. Liz Claiborne’s gross margin for sales to department stores shrank in the third quarter. The clothier wouldn’t say by how much.
Department stores have gone beyond “what the markdown rate ought to be,” Liz Claiborne Chief Executive Officer Bill McComb said on a Nov. 11 conference call. “There’s no way that every vendor is going to be paying 100 percent of their liabilities here.”
Macy’s, Saks
Macy’s is New York-based Liz Claiborne’s biggest wholesale customer, accounting for 11 percent, or about $400 million, of its total 2007 sales. Liz Claiborne’s allowance for discounts that year was $74 million. Liz Claiborne spokeswoman Dana Stambaugh said the company had no comment for this story.
Saks put new fall fashions on sale in September at 40 percent off, McComb said in November. Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus Group Inc. offered what he called “extraordinary” markdowns. This month, Macy’s is advertising discounts of 20 percent to 65 percent. Representatives of New York-based Saks and of Macy’s, based in Cincinnati, declined to comment.
“The vendors have been absorbing the majority of the impact, and we’re at the point that they are really hurting,” Thomas Weisel’s Dunn said.
The Standard & Poor’s Supercomposite Apparel and Accessories Index dropped 44 percent this year before today. New York-based Liz Claiborne is the biggest decliner in the group of 19 companies, having lost 89 percent of its market value in 2008.
‘Good Partnerships’
“Both sides will be trying to come to the right point of view here,” Macy’s Chief Financial Officer Karen Hoguet said in a Nov. 12 conference call. “We believe passionately in maintaining good partnerships and we’ll do that. But part of that is having us help each other out.”
In October, Jones Apparel Group Inc. Chief Financial Officer John McClain blamed the “highly promotional retail environment” for an erosion in adjusted third-quarter operating margin. Operating income as a percentage of sales at the New York-based maker of Anne Klein clothes and Nine West shoes narrowed to 6.1 percent from 8.5 percent last year, the company reported.
J.P. Morgan estimated that earnings before interest and taxes at Jones Apparel could shrink to 4.4 percent this year and 3.8 percent in 2009. At Jones Apparel, discount allowances were $90 million last year. The company had no comment for this story.
“The retailers call it a partnership,” Quest Turnaround’s Appel said. “The vendors see it more as a one-way street.”
Dressing-Area Exit Gave Mall Shooting Suspects a Way Out
Dressing-Area Exit Gave Mall Shooting Suspects a Way Out
By Dan Morse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 28, 2008; C04
Two suspects who led Montgomery County police on a chase through a Macy's store in Wheaton on Tuesday escaped through an emergency exit in a dressing room area, police said yesterday.
Detectives continued to look for the duo and at least two others who might be involved in what police are calling a gang-related shooting in a parking lot outside the store.
The detectives are studying surveillance videos. One shows three males and a female -- all believed to be affiliated with the same gang -- following another group across the parking lot at the Westfield Wheaton Shopping Centre. Two of the suspects fired shots at the other group. One member of the rival group was wounded. Two female bystanders were injured slightly by flying glass from a nearby automobile.
Another video shows three males and a female entering the department store, walking past racks of clothes and a couple of people who seem at ease.
One of the suspects appears to be holding a white foam food container. Another sips a bottled drink. Three officers enter the store, clearly in pursuit.
Another video, taken near a dressing room, shows two men running into the dressing room. An officer in pursuit can be seen approaching the dressing room but stopping short.
Lt. Paul Starks, a police spokesman, said the officers showed proper restraint, given the blind corner they faced and the presence of armed suspects and innocent bystanders.
"We're not trained to rush into places under those circumstances," Starks said.
The duo in the dressing room used an emergency exit door and fired one round -- an apparent accidental discharge -- in the process, police said. Officers found two guns in the dressing area, one of which was determined to be stolen.
Two or three hours after the chase, police arrested a 19-year-old man carrying a stolen gun at the store. Police no longer believe he was linked to the parking lot shooting.
Police provided the following descriptions of four people who they say were in the group in the parking lot:
· A black male, 5-foot-10 to 6 feet tall, weighing 160 pounds with short black hair. He appeared to be 18 to 22 years old and was wearing a yellow hooded jacket with black sides, tan cargo pants and white tennis shoes. Police said he might have been one of the shooters.
· A black male, 6 feet to 6-foot-1, wearing a black jacket and jeans with stonewashed fronts. Police said he also might have been a shooter.
· A black male, 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-8, weighing 160 to 170 pounds, who appeared to be in his early 20s. He was wearing a green jacket and a black knit cap with a white circle near the top of the cap.
· A black female with a light complexion, 5-foot-4 to 5-foot-6, weighing 120 pounds, who appeared to be 16 to 20 years old. She was wearing a white, gray and black medium-length North Face jacket with jeans and black shoes.
Police ask that anyone with information about the incident call 240-773-5530.
By Dan Morse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 28, 2008; C04
Two suspects who led Montgomery County police on a chase through a Macy's store in Wheaton on Tuesday escaped through an emergency exit in a dressing room area, police said yesterday.
Detectives continued to look for the duo and at least two others who might be involved in what police are calling a gang-related shooting in a parking lot outside the store.
The detectives are studying surveillance videos. One shows three males and a female -- all believed to be affiliated with the same gang -- following another group across the parking lot at the Westfield Wheaton Shopping Centre. Two of the suspects fired shots at the other group. One member of the rival group was wounded. Two female bystanders were injured slightly by flying glass from a nearby automobile.
Another video shows three males and a female entering the department store, walking past racks of clothes and a couple of people who seem at ease.
One of the suspects appears to be holding a white foam food container. Another sips a bottled drink. Three officers enter the store, clearly in pursuit.
Another video, taken near a dressing room, shows two men running into the dressing room. An officer in pursuit can be seen approaching the dressing room but stopping short.
Lt. Paul Starks, a police spokesman, said the officers showed proper restraint, given the blind corner they faced and the presence of armed suspects and innocent bystanders.
"We're not trained to rush into places under those circumstances," Starks said.
The duo in the dressing room used an emergency exit door and fired one round -- an apparent accidental discharge -- in the process, police said. Officers found two guns in the dressing area, one of which was determined to be stolen.
Two or three hours after the chase, police arrested a 19-year-old man carrying a stolen gun at the store. Police no longer believe he was linked to the parking lot shooting.
Police provided the following descriptions of four people who they say were in the group in the parking lot:
· A black male, 5-foot-10 to 6 feet tall, weighing 160 pounds with short black hair. He appeared to be 18 to 22 years old and was wearing a yellow hooded jacket with black sides, tan cargo pants and white tennis shoes. Police said he might have been one of the shooters.
· A black male, 6 feet to 6-foot-1, wearing a black jacket and jeans with stonewashed fronts. Police said he also might have been a shooter.
· A black male, 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-8, weighing 160 to 170 pounds, who appeared to be in his early 20s. He was wearing a green jacket and a black knit cap with a white circle near the top of the cap.
· A black female with a light complexion, 5-foot-4 to 5-foot-6, weighing 120 pounds, who appeared to be 16 to 20 years old. She was wearing a white, gray and black medium-length North Face jacket with jeans and black shoes.
Police ask that anyone with information about the incident call 240-773-5530.
Macy's closing nine stores
Macy's closing nine stores
December 28, 2007
On Friday, Macy’s announced it will be closing nine underperforming stores in Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah. Chairman, President and Chief Executive Terry J. Lundgren said the chain is closing locations where growth opportunities did not seem to exist.
Some of the 899 staffers who worked at the stores are going to be offered positions in nearby locations. Others will receive severance pay and outplacement assistance.
December 28, 2007
On Friday, Macy’s announced it will be closing nine underperforming stores in Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah. Chairman, President and Chief Executive Terry J. Lundgren said the chain is closing locations where growth opportunities did not seem to exist.
Some of the 899 staffers who worked at the stores are going to be offered positions in nearby locations. Others will receive severance pay and outplacement assistance.
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