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Saks Fifth Avenue

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This article is about the chain of department stores. For its parent company, see Saks Incorporated.
Saks Fifth Avenue
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryRetail
Founded1898 (1898)
FounderAndrew Saks
Headquarters
New York City, New York
,
U.S.
Number of locations
Saks Fifth Avenue: 42
OFF 5TH: 65
(October 2013)[1]
ProductsClothing, footwear, designer handbags, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, and housewares
OwnerSaks, Inc.
ParentHudson's Bay Company
SubsidiariesSaks Fifth Avenue OFF 5TH
Websitesaksfifthavenue.com

Saks Fifth Avenue is an American upmarket department store chain owned by multinational corporation Hudson's Bay Company, which operates the flagship store and corporate headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.[1][3] It competes with high-end specialty stores in Manhattan, notably Bergdorf Goodman, Barneys New York and Bloomingdale's. It also competes with luxury retailers; Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, as well as corporate cousin Lord & Taylor and Von Maur.

History

The 1996-2007 Logo
Saks Fifth Avenue location at the outlet mall in San Marcos, Texas, is shaped like a small Alamo building.

Saks Fifth Avenue is the successor of a business founded by Andrew Saks in 1867 and incorporated in New York in 1902 as Saks & Company. Saks died in 1912, and in 1923 Saks & Co. merged with Gimbel Brothers, Inc., which was owned by a cousin of Horace Saks,[4] Bernard Gimbel, operating as a separate autonomous subsidiary. On September 15, 1924, Horace Saks and Bernard Gimbel opened Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City, with a full-block avenue frontage south of St Patrick's Cathedral, facing Rockefeller Center. The architects were Starrett & van Vleck, who developed a reticent, genteel Anglophile classicizing facade similar to their Gimbels Department Store, Pittsburgh (1914).

When Bernard's brother, Adam Gimbel, became President of Saks Fifth Avenue in 1926 after Bernard's sudden passing, the company assumed national aspirations, opening its branch that year in Palm Beach, Florida, as a seasonal resort store, followed by a second resort store in Southampton, New York, in 1928. The first full-line year-round Saks store opened in Chicago, in 1929, followed by another resort store in Miami Beach, Florida. In 1938, Saks expanded to the West Coast, opening in Beverly Hills, California. By the end of the 1930s, Saks Fifth Avenue had a total of 10 stores, including resort locations such as Sun Valley, Idaho, Mount Stowe, and Newport, Rhode Island. More full-line stores followed with Detroit, Michigan, in 1940 and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1949. In Downtown Pittsburgh, the company moved to its own freestanding location approximately one block from its former home on the fourth floor in the downtown Gimbel's flagship. The San Francisco location opened in 1952. More expansion followed from the 1960s through the 1990s including the Midwest, and the South, particularly in Texas.

BATUS Inc. acquired Gimbel Bros., Inc. and its Saks Fifth Avenue subsidiary in 1973 as part of its diversification strategy. In 1990, BATUS sold Saks to Investcorp S.A., which after investing in the company and weathering the early 1990s recession took Saks public in 1996 as Saks Holdings, Inc. In 1998, Proffitt's, Inc. the parent company of Proffitt's and other department stores, acquired Saks Holdings Inc. Upon completing the acquisition, Proffitt's, Inc. changed its name to Saks Inc.

In 2005, vendors filed against Saks alleging unlawful chargebacks. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigated the complaint and Saks settled with the SEC in 2007.[5]

In August 2007, the United States Postal Service began an experimental program selling the plus zip code extension to businesses. The first company to do so was Saks Fifth Avenue which received the zip code of 10022-SHOE (7463) for the eighth floor shoe department in its flagship Fifth Avenue store.[6] Today, the New York flagship store accounts for a significant amount of the entire chain's annual revenue.

Saks continued expanding its physical presence throughout much of the 1980s and 1990s, resulting in Saks being saddled with a number of underperforming locations. Since 2000, Saks has closed several locations, including White Plains, Garden City, and Southampton in New York, Minneapolis, San Diego, Portland, Oregon, and suburban Chicago locations. Since 2010 another 10 stores have closed or are scheduled to close, including Pittsburgh (despite local efforts to save it),[7] Denver,[8] Charleston, South Carolina, Stamford, Connecticut, Austin, Dallas Willow Bend and Orlando which will close in 2014. Additionally, the company closed its location in Tampa, operated since 1996, in April, 2013 and its last Dallas location in June 2013 to implement the "strategy of employing our resources in our most productive locations."[9]

Despite scaling back its Saks Fifth Avenue presence, the company has expanded the number of Saks Off Fifth locations, a concept first introduced in 2000. In states where it continues to operate, the number of stores has remained constant or risen through the addition of Saks Off Fifth sites.

On July 29, 2013, the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), owner of the competing chain Lord & Taylor, announced it would acquire Saks Fifth Avenue's parent company for US$2.9 billion.[10] Plans call for up to seven Saks Fifth Avenues to open in major Canadian markets, using either existing Hudson's Bay locations or new construction. Expansion into Canada is expected to challenge Canadian Holt Renfrew chain and compete with Nordstrom's expansion into Canada, which began in Summer 2014 with the opening of a Nordstrom store in Calgary. In January 2014, HBC announced the first Saks store in Canada would occupy 150,000 sq ft (14,000 m2) in its flagship Queen Street building in downtown Toronto. The store will open in autumn 2015 with a second Toronto area location in the Sherway Gardens shopping center opening in spring 2016. Earlier, the company announced it would convert its location in the Hudson's Bay Centre at Bloor and Yonge Streets to Saks Fifth Avenue to make it part of the upscale Yorkville shopping district.[11]

The regular price business may be undermined by a larger number of Saks Off Fifth to open.[12] Some Saks Fifth Avenue stores in the United States may convert to Lord & Taylor stores as early as January 2014.

On January 6, 2014, Marigay McKee, previously Chief Merchant at Harrods, is president of Saks Fifth Avenue.[13][14]

On October 16, 2014, Saks Fifth Avenue opened its 39th store in Sarasota, Florida at the University Town Center.[15]

Controversy

In 2014 Saks fired transgender employee Leyth Jamal after she was "belittled by coworkers, forced to use the men's room and repeatedly referred to by male pronouns (he and him)".[16][17] After Jamal submitted a lawsuit for unfair dismissal, the company stated in a motion to dismiss that "it is well settled that transsexuals are not protected by Title VII."[16][17][18] The company was removed from the Human Rights Campaign's list of "allies" as a result.[16][17][18]

International

The chain's strategy for international expansion focuses on underserved luxury markets. Its first international location, operated under license by SFAE, opened in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, courting the wealth of the oil-rich Middle East. Other locations now include the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Thailand, and two stores in Mexico City. The company's second Saudi Arabia location opened in January 2009 in Jeddah but is now closed.[19] and in Puerto Rico in The Mall of San Juan.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Store Locations and Events". Saks Inc. Retrieved 2014-05-21.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Fashion Crowd Toasts Richard Baker in Paris was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "About Us". Saks Fifth Avenue. Retrieved 2014-05-21.
  4. ^ Block, Maxine; Rothe, Anna Herthe; Candee, Marjorie Dent (1951). Current Biography Yearbook. H. W. Wilson Co. p. 173.
  5. ^ "Saks Inc. Settles Financial Reporting and Related Charges by SEC" (Press release). Securities and Exchange Commission. 5 September 2007. Retrieved 2014-05-21.
  6. ^ "Saks department gets own ZIP code: 10022-SHOE". USA Today. Associated Press. 24 May 2007. Retrieved 2014-05-21.
  7. ^ Gough, Paul J. (19 January 2012). "Saks Fifth Avenue Downtown to close March 17". Pittsburgh Business Times. Retrieved 2014-05-21.
  8. ^ Moore, Paula (5 January 2011). "Saks Fifth Avenue's Denver store to close". Denver Business Journal. Retrieved 2014-05-21.
  9. ^ "Saks Fifth Avenue To Close Store in Dallas". Retailfacilitybusiness.com. 4 February 2013. Retrieved 2014-05-21.
  10. ^ Lewis, Michael (29 July 2013). "Hudson's Bay rolls the dice on Saks". Toronto Star. Retrieved 21-052014. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  11. ^ Strauss, Marina (27 January 2014). "Tycoon shows his real estate savvy with sale of Hudson's Bay store". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2014-05-27.
  12. ^ Wahba, Phil; Ho, Solarina (29 July 2013). "Hudson's Bay CEO bets big on department stores with Saks buy". Reuters. Retrieved 2014-05-21.
  13. ^ Diderich, Joelle (22 January 2014). "Fashion Crowd Toasts Richard Baker in Paris". Women's Wear Daily. Retrieved 2014-05-21.
  14. ^ "Saks Fifth Avenue Appoints Mark Briggs Chief Marketing Officer" (Press release). Hudson's Bay Company. 19 December 2013. Retrieved 2014-05-21.
  15. ^ url=http://www3.hbc.com/press-release-container/saks-fifth-avenue-to-open-new-store-in-sarasota/
  16. ^ a b c Steinmetz, Katy (2015-01-12). "How the Lawsuit Between Saks and a Transgender Employee Might Shake Out". Time. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
  17. ^ a b c Hoffman, Meredith (2015-01-13). "Saks Is Fighting to Discriminate Against a Transgender Ex-Employee". Vice News. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
  18. ^ a b Reilly, Nicholas (2015-01-09). "New York department store Saks 'defends discrimination against transgender staff'". Metro. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
  19. ^ "Saks Incorporated Announces Opening of Saks Fifth Avenue in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia". Reuters (Press release). Hudson's Bay Company. 11 January 2009. Retrieved 2014-05-21.
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