Macy’s, the leading department store chain in the United States, is set to shutter 65 locations by the end of 2024 and 150 locations total over the next three years.
During a Wednesday Q3 2024 earnings call, chief financial officer and chief operating officer Adrian Mitchell said “we now expect to close about 65 locations this year, up from our prior expectation of 55 and 50 at the beginning of the year.”
Chairman and chief executive officer Tony Spring said that “closures will occur post-holiday” and added that the move “gets us even closer” to becoming a “more profitable Macy’s, Inc.”
Macy’s, which also owns department store chain Bloomingdale’s and beauty store chain Bluemercury, has yet to specify which underperforming locations will be closed.
Once the 150 stores are closed by 2028, Macy’s will have just 350 — down from the 1,100 it had in 2008, according to the Daily Mail.
The popular department store’s sales also dropped by 2.4 percent in Q3, company officials said Wednesday.
Compounding the negative results was the announcement — made just a day before the earnings report was originally scheduled to go live on November 26 — that a Macy’s employee “intentionally hid up to $154 million in expenses over three years,” according to Barrons.
The company’s shares dropped by more than 12 percent after the earnings call, but had “mostly recovered” by Thursday afternoon, the outlet reported.
Shares are still down by 15 percent this fiscal year, however.