No Turn On Red

CNBC television is reporting that Limited Brands has made three headlines:

- Limited Brands has reached an agreement with private equity firm Golden Gate Capital to sell a 67% stake in the Express brand for $548m

- They are still exploring “strategic options” for Limited Stores

- They have slashed their Q1 earnings forecast in half from $0.25 – 0.28/share to $0.12 – 0.14/share.

LTD Stock has reopened after being halted at $27.14 at 2:27 and has immediately dropped to around $26.

More from CNBC and a just issued press release by Limited Brands.

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CNBC television is reporting that Limited Brands stock (LTD) has been halted on the NYSE pending breaking news.

Jim Cramer on CNBC’s “Street Signs” speculates that they could be going to announce some sort of spinoff.

Speculation lately has been that the chain was shopping the under performing Express Fashion and Limited stores to potential sellers. Previous spinoffs from Limited Brands have included Abercrombie & Fitch, Lane Bryant, Lerner New York, & Limited Too/Tween Brands.

Could be an interesting shakeup to the mall landscape.

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Friday I took a walk around to mall to see how the retailers were preparing for the upcoming transition from Summer to Back to School. I also wanted to take advatange of the early-clearance and Father’s Day sales to pick up some new clothes. I was successful on both accounts.

All of the stores are in different stages of the transition, with Abercrombie & Fitch looking spotless as they’ve completed the first phase of their set. Look for their full BTS floorplan to be set by June 29. Limited Brands is running Summer clearance sales at their stores (Limited, Limited Too, Victoria Secret & Express), while Gap Inc. is starting the markdowns at Old Navy and Gap. Gap has previously stated that they will re-launch all of their stores on July 20th, which is the same date they have also announced that Old Navy will begin their BTS advertising blitz.

Some notes from around the world this week:

Wal-Mart gets sued by Prada for selling fake bags, a week after Fendi filed suit against them for fake goods as well. Is this the start of a larger trend that will unravel to the core of what drives Wal-Mart’s business model, or is this just two more examples of the litiguous society we live in today? [via Wake Up Wal-Mart]

Also on the Wal-Mart front, they’ve opened a new store in Kearny, New Jersey at the same time that activists in the Bronx gear up to fight Wal-Mart coming into that part of New York City. The fight to enter New York City is going to be tough for Wal-Mart. Target, Kohl’s, Best Buy and numerous other “big box” retailers have locations within the five boroughs, but expect a long, drawn out fight against Wal-Mart as they continue to look for reality in the City.

Monday’s New York Times reports that Playskool will be expanding into Baby Care, via a partnership with drug store chain CVS. Will parents react? September will tell. Hasbro will have a lot of work to do in order to build more brand loyalty in an area that is completely new to them, but they may be able to do it. I don’t have kids, but it seems that shoppers in this area respond to name recognition second and value first. When everything is unveiled, baby care could be a very lucrative area for Hasbro.

A lot of retailers (and investors) are banking on this Father’s Day being very good to them. June 2005 was very good to a lot of retailers, so this month’s numbers will be scrutinized as we go into the BTS season. I can’t believe we’re only a little more than half way through June.

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The May comp store numbers for the retail industry:

In the mall: Abercrombie up 3.0, Aeropostale down 1.1, American Eagle up 11.0, Ann Taylor up 12.0 , Hot Topic down 6.0, Limited Brands up 7.0, and Pacific Sunwear down 2.6. Gap as a company was down 6.0, however the break down between companies is interesting. Gap North America was down 5.0, Gap International is down 13.0, Old Navy was down 8.0, but Banana Republic is starting to show signs of a turnaround with a 3.0 positive comp.

In the department store sector: Dillard’s up 3.0, Federated up 9.2, JC Penny up 11.1, Kohl’s up 3.1, Nordstrom up 7.8, and Saks up 5.7.

In the battle of Target v. Wal-Mart and warehouse stores v. warehouse stores, Target was up 5.7 & Wal-Mart was up 2.0. Sam’s Club was up 4.0 while BJ’s Wholesale was up 4.2 and Costco was up 10.0.

Generally a pretty positive month across the board. Gap continues to struggle and Kohl’s is curiously one of the few companies with positive marks that didn’t beat investor estimates. Pacific Sunwear was down 2.6 after a fantastic April in which they posted a 14.0 positive comp.

Minyanville posts a good roundup of the May numbers, covering some retailers I didn’t cover here.

Interesting month and a good start to the Summer season in retail.

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