retailers

Private equity firm Sycamore Partners is in preliminary talks to acquire JCPenney out of bankruptcy should the US department store chain’s negotiations with its creditors fail, three people familiar with the matter said on Friday. Shares of JCPenney jumped almost 55 percent on the news. JCPenney, which employs roughly 85,000 people, filed for bankruptcy protection …

It might be safer to rob a bank. Retailers across the country are boosting their defenses to protect against looting, including by hiring armed guards, planting scouts to keep watch out front and securing storefronts with barbed wire, The Post has learned. As The Post reported on June 2, iconic department store Saks Fifth Avenue …

H&M, the world’s second-biggest fashion retailer, said on Tuesday it had temporarily closed 95 of its stores in the US because of the violent protests following the death of George Floyd in police custody. “We have closed 95 stores temporarily due to the protests,” an H&M spokesman told Reuters. The protests erupted across the US …

The Big Apple is boarding up — just as it was preparing to reopen. After three days of violence and looting in cities across the country in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death while in police custody, many Big Apple retailers — including Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s, Bloomingdales and Uniqlo — have boarded up their …

Going out of business has helped boost sales at Pier 1 Imports, The Post has learned. The struggling seller of glassware and wicker furniture has been raking in some $20 million a week in online going-out-of-business sales, the CEO revealed at a bankruptcy hearing on Friday. That’s better than any of its Black Friday sales …

Don’t expect it to be the same free-food free-for-all you were used to, Costco shoppers. After temporarily discontinuing the practice in early March, Costco is planning to once again offer free samples at its warehouses — but only on a “slow rollout basis.” Speaking in a third-quarter earnings call on Thursday, Costco CFO Richard Galanti …

US consumer spending took a record nosedive last month as Americans hoarded cash during the coronavirus pandemic, new data show. Personal consumption spending tumbled 13.6 percent in April, marking the largest drop since the feds started tracking the figure in 1959, the US Department of Commerce said Friday. The US savings rate, however, soared to …

The nation’s biggest mattress maker is in danger of becoming a coronavirus casualty this summer — and it’s the company’s private-equity owners that have made it vulnerable. Serta Simmons — a 150-year-old manufacturer that controls nearly 40 percent of the US mattress market — is facing a liquidity crunch as its retailers struggle with state-ordered …

Struggling retailers like Ethan Allen and Raymour & Flanigan have been skirting Gov. Cuomo’s lockdown rules, The Post has learned. The publicly traded Ethan Allen, for example, has been letting customers meet with dedicated sales people, known as “designers,” to browse New York showrooms on an appointment-only basis for weeks, according to employees. “We don’t …

Best Buy said on Thursday it expects profit margins to be under pressure in the second quarter, as it spends more on expanding delivery services to support a surge in online shopping from people staying at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company’s shares, which have gained nearly 60 percent in the last two …