“The bill for J.C. Penney Co.’s first year under Chief Executive Ron Johnson is in, and it’s about $4.3 billion,” Dana Mattioli reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“That’s how much sales at the department store chain dropped in the 12 months after the former Apple Inc. executive cut back on discounts and rolled out a plan to fill stores with dozens of branded boutiques,” Mattioli reports. “Declines worsened through the year, with sales down 28.4% from a year earlier in the fourth quarter, which spans the crucial holiday selling period. The company reported a fourth-quarter loss of $552 million, its worst of the year, and held $930 million in cash on Feb. 2, a decline of 38% from a year earlier. For the full fiscal year, Penney had a loss of $985 million, compared to a $152 million loss the year before.”
Mattioli reports, “The results are a comedown for Mr. Johnson, who arrived with great fanfare from Apple in November 2011 with ambitions to remake a chain that had sold inexpensive clothes to middle-American shoppers for decades… On Wednesday, he backtracked significantly on his plan to limit discounts, telling investors the company will start holding regular sales. ‘We’ll offer sales each and every week as we move forward,’ the CEO said on a conference call to discuss the results.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yeesh.
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