From: ASAP
As part of ongoing initiatives aimed at expanding and building on the power of its national brands, Federated Department Stores, Inc. (NYSE:FD)(PCX:FD) announced today that its Bloomingdale's By Mail catalog and the macys.com e-commerce businesses are being realigned to operate under their respective namesake divisions. Previously, both Bloomingdale's By Mail and macys.com operated under the umbrella of Federated Direct.
"The Macy's and Bloomingdale's brands are among the strongest in retailing, and we have been encouraged by the progress that has been made in effectively positioning the direct-to-customer extensions of these national brands under the umbrella of a division specifically dedicated to this objective," said Terry J. Lundgren, Federated's president and chief operating officer. "Having established this strong foundation, we now believe there is greater potential in more closely aligning these direct-to- customer channels with the marketing strategies of the department stores."
As of March 1, Bloomingdale's By Mail and its staff of 75 will be integrated into Bloomingdale's, where it began catalog operations in 1982. Franz Weiglein, president of Bloomingdale's Direct, will report to Bloomingdale's President Ed Holman and Tony Spring, the division's executive vice president of marketing, sales promotion and creative services.
Macys.com, which serves all Macy nameplate divisions and provides electronic commerce for all of Federated, started in 1996 as the Internet extension of the Macy's brand. Effective March 1, Kent Anderson, president of macys.com, will report to Macy's West President Michael J. Osborn. Approximately 100 macys.com employees - about 60 in New York City responsible for merchandising, planning and creative functions, and 40 in San Francisco, responsible for product and site management, technology support and marketing - will be unaffected by the internal realignment.
Fulfillment, finance and human resources functions of Federated Direct, including the bridal registry, will be realigned with the brands and within Federated to best support the ongoing operations of the Bloomingdale's By Mail catalog and macys.com e-commerce.
Federated, with corporate offices in Cincinnati and New York, is one of the nation's leading department store retailers, with annual sales from continuing operations of more than $15 billion. Federated currently operates more than 450 stores in 34 states, Guam and Puerto Rico, under the names of Macy's, Bloomingdale's, The Bon Marche, Burdines, Goldsmith's, Lazarus and Rich's-Macy's, as well as macys.com and Bloomingdale's By Mail.
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