Word: woolworth
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First, F.W. Woolworth Co. (projected 1982 sales: $7.3 billion) decided to lop off its unprofitable Woolco discount stores and to pull out of Britain. Next, Woolworth Chairman Edward Gibbons, 63, died suddenly in October. Then Bruce Allbright, 54, whom Gibbons had hired just one year earlier to run Woolco and the U.S. Woolworth stores, returned to Dayton Hudson Corp. Finally, the upheaval at Woolworth reached a climax last week when its highly regarded president, Richard Anderson, 47, also walked out the door. He was immediately replaced by Harold Sells, 54, who had been senior vice president...
Anderson's departure for Melville Corp., a specialty retailer that he joined as executive vice president just one day after quitting Woolworth, seems to suggest that Gibbons' approach to retailing at Woolworth may not survive him. He became chairman of Woolworth in 1978, and is generally credited with having brought fresh ideas to the 103-year-old company and having recruited and promoted imaginative managers. Among the standouts were Anderson and Allbright, both protégés of Gibbons, who helped him steer the variety store chain into new types of retailing. Their approach was often more...
...showdown apparently came in November, when the board passed over Anderson to name John Lynn the new chairman. Lynn, 61, who joined Woolworth as a management trainee in 1941 and most recently was vice chairman, is considered part of the old guard...
...Woolworth watchers fear that the loss of executives of the caliber of Anderson and Allbright could be severely damaging to the company. They are afraid that the big retailer, which has been in a three-year profit slide, will become timid about expanding promising operations like Kinney Shoe Corp. and its Foot Locker unit, and reluctant to move fast into new specialty areas. On Wall Street, Woolworth stock fell 1⅝, to 24⅛, the day Anderson's resignation was announced. The shares closed the week...
...Woolworth management could reveal its thinking soon. The company shut the last of its 336 Woolco outlets last weekend, and is finally rid of a substantial profit drain. The slimmed-down firm must now decide whether it intends to expand in new ways or remain at the same old stand...