Adam Levine-Weinberg

Earlier this year, luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue announced plans to spin off its ecommerce business at a $2 billion valuation, backed by a $500 million minority investment from Insight Partners. Now, activist investor Jana Partners wants Macy's to follow a similar path. It claims that such a move could unlock billions of dollars of shareholder value. There are just two problems. First, the Saks ecommerce spinoff looks like a dubious move at best. Second, even if Saks manages to separate its physical and digital businesses without falling …

Activists Chart an Uncertain Future for Macy’sRead More

Of the roughly 1,000 malls in the U.S., more than a third are rated C or D, which are grades that indicate low sales productivity, high vacancy rates, poor tenant quality, and other weaknesses. Once the retail apocalypse gained steam around 2015, it quickly became clear that most of these properties wouldn’t be viable as malls by 2030. The Covid-19 pandemic dealt malls another blow last year. Public health orders forced most U.S. malls to close for months and ratcheted up the financial pressure on many of their tenants. Moreover, during 2020 …

Don’t Sell the Return of Malls ShortRead More

"There are three kinds of lies," Mark Twain famously wrote over a century ago. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics." The conventional media reporting on the U.S. Census Bureau's monthly retail sales reports epitomizes how misused statistics can become no better than lies. The recently released July retail sales report is a prime example. Fake News After the report came out on August 16, media outlets ran with blaring headlines. To give just a few examples, CNBC talked about a "worse-than-expected" drop of 1.1 percent, while CNN called the …

A Retail Health CheckRead More

Over the past decade, "omnichannel" has become one of the most common buzzwords in retail. Retail executives, industry consultants, and analysts all agree on the importance of integrating the brick-and-mortar and online channels so that customers can move seamlessly between them. Yet while there's consensus about what retailers should do, adapting to this new way of doing business isn't simple. Of course, some prominent retailers like Target have made omnichannel look easy. Target got a late start, having made a boneheaded move to outsource …

Why Omnichannel Is So HardRead More

In recent weeks, Macy's has resumed expanding its Backstage off-price chain, following a pause while the department store giant fought through the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic last year. Since the beginning of April, the company has opened 26 new Backstage stores within full-line Macy's locations. That brings the Backstage store count to an even 250. Another eight new locations are set to open on May 15, putting Macy's close to its target of opening 45 new Backstage stores within Macy's full-line stores in 2021. The retailer also plans to …

Macy’s Off-Price Gambit Is the Only Way ForwardRead More