Federated Department Stores
Federated Department Stores, Inc. is a
department store chain founded in
1929 as a
holding company in
Columbus, Ohio, specializing mostly in
retailing clothing, jewelry, dinnerware and watches. The company is currently headquartered in
Cincinnati, Ohio and operates almost 1,000 stores in the
United States, many under the
Bloomingdale's and
Macy's nameplates.
Federated Department Stores was founded in
1929 in
Columbus, Ohio as a department store
holding company for
Abraham & Straus,
F&R Lazarus & Company and
William Filene's Sons.
Bloomingdale Brothers joined the organization in 1930. In 1945 Federated moved its corporate offices to
Cincinnati, Ohio.
|
Federated company headquarters building in Cincinnati. |
Over the next few decades, Federated expanded nationwide, adding
Rike Kumler of
Dayton, Ohio,
Shillito's of Cincinnati (merged in the 1980s as
Shillito-Rike's),
Burdines of
Miami, Florida,
Rich's of
Atlanta, Georgia,
Foley's of
Houston, Texas,
Sanger Brothers of
Dallas, Texas,
A. Harris of
Dallas, Texas (which was merged with Sanger Brothers to form Sanger-Harris),
Boston Store of
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Bullock's-I. Magnin organization.
Federated is the successor to the Lazarus operation begun in Columbus, Ohio in 1851. Lazarus family members served in prominent positions within Federated through the 1980's. In the mid 1930's, a modern merchandising standard was set when Fred Lazarus (son of Simon) arranged garments in groups of a single size with a range of style, color and price in that size, rather than the other way around. Lazarus based this technique upon observations made in Paris.
Fred Lazarus Jr. also convinced President
Franklin Roosevelt that changing the
Thanksgiving holiday from the last Thursday of November to the fourth Thursday, extending the Christmas shopping season, would be good for the nation's business. A 1941 Act of Congress perpetuated the arrangement.
To support its huge retail operations, Federated has centralized its back-office functions into several large divisions, covering financial services, marketing, merchandising, logistics, and data processing systems. Other retailers' branded credit cards are usually issued and serviced by a third-party bank; Federated is so huge that it runs its own private bank, FDS Bank, which in turn issues and services the proprietary credit cards offered at Federated stores.
|
The exterior of a Macy's department store in downtown Cincinnati. |
In
1990, Federated went bankrupt after its hostile
takeover by
Robert Campeau's
Allied Stores, and then taking over
Macy's in
1994 while that company was still emerging from its own bankruptcy in 1992. Federated entered
e-commerce late in
1998, and FDS Bank was one of the last credit card banks to allow its cardholders to access account information online (around
2004). The department store chain
Stern's, a division of Federated, ceased operations in
2001, and most of its stores became
Macy's stores. In 2003, Federated changed the nameplates of their non-Macy's stores, except Bloomingdale's, to include the Macy's name. For example, The Bon Marche, a Washington state-based store, became Bon-Macys; Goldsmith's, in Tennessee, became Goldsmith's-Macys; Lazarus, Burdines, and Rich's also added "-Macys" to their name. A year later, the original hyphenated names were dropped in favor of just Macy's.
May Department Stores Acquisition
On
February 28,
2005, Federated Department Stores announced that they would acquire
May Department Stores company for $11 billion in cash and stock. Also part of the buyout was the bridal and formal unit of May, consisting of
David's Bridal and
After Hours Formalwear. Federated would also assume $6 billion of May's debt, bringing total consideration to $17 billion. The deal would create the nation's largest department store chain with over 1,000 stores and $30 billion in annual sales. To help finance the deal, Federated agreed to sell its combined proprietary credit card business (but still administrated by FACS Group, a subsidiary of Federated) to
Citigroup. The merger was completed on
August 30, 2005, after an assurance agreement was reached with the State Attorneys General of
New York,
California,
Massachusetts,
Maryland and
Pennsylvania.
Federated has announced plans to sell 80 store locations in
2006, having pledged in its settlement to sell most of them as viable business', with preference being given to a group of thirteen competitors. This number could fluctuate pursuant to Federated's negotiations with various mall landlords and its final decision regarding using former May locations for its luxury
Bloomingdale's operation. Macy's has announced that it will sell the May Company division
Lord & Taylor brand to a conglomerate of investors.
By Fall
2006, May Company division stores
Famous-Barr,
Filene's,
Foley's (the prior two are former Federated stores in their own right),
Hecht's,
The Jones Store,
Kaufmann's,
L.S. Ayres,
Marshall Field's,
Meier & Frank,
Robinsons-May, and
Strawbridge's brands will cease to exist as Federated will replace most of them with the
Macy's masthead, and some with the
Bloomingdale's brand.
 |
A Bloomingdale's department store in Lenox Square mall in Atlanta. |
*
Bloomingdale's - 36
*Famous-Barr - 23
*Filene's - 46
*Foley's - 70
*
Hecht's - 62
*The Jones Store - 7
*Kaufmann's - 55
*
L.S. Ayres - 12
*
Macy's - 424 (app. 730 by Fall of 2006)
*Marshall Field's - 60
*Meier & Frank - 17
*
Robinsons-May - 58
*Strawbridge's - 20
*Bridal Group:
**
After Hours Formalwear - 459
**
David's Bridal â€" 232
**Priscilla of Boston - 10
*
F&R Lazarus & Company *
Department store*
May Department Stores*
Retailing*
Federated Department Stores on the Web*
History of Federated Department Stores, Inc.*
Yahoo! - Federated Department Stores, Inc. Company Profile*
WOSU-TV Documentary: Many Happy Returns to Lazarus Documentary*
Interview with Charles Lazarus for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society*
Business First Article: Staffers Remember When Work Seemed Like a Family*
Columbus Dispatch Article: Name Change Hurt Macy's: Decision to drop ‘Lazarus' not a hit here*
University of Cincinnati: Biography of Ralph Lazarus (1914 - 1988)*
Great Living Cincinnatians: Fred Lazarus, Jr.
