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The New Albany-based apparel merchant said Wednesday it willshut Ruehl’ s 29 stores and direct-to-consumer operationw and will be “substantially complete” with the effort by the end of next The decision comes a month afterf Abercrombie (NYSE:ANF) took a deep strategic look at the which targets young adults with clothesd and accessories. Ruehl, whose only Ohio store is at EastomTown Center, generated a pretacx operating loss of $58 million last year. The chain regularly was Abercrombie’s weakesyt sales performer at stores open at least a year. Ruehl’s same-storre sales were off 33 percentin May. Abercrombie earnedc $272.3 million on $3.
534 billion in revenue last year. “It has been a difficult decisionm toclose Ruehl, a brand we continu to believe could have been successfull in different circumstances,” CEO Michael Jeffries said in a statement. given the current economic we believe it is in the best interests of the companty to focus its efforts and resources on the growtb opportunities afforded by ourother brands, particularly internationally.
” The company didn’tr disclose the effects on the chain’sa work force, nor did it indicate the number of jobs tied to The review of Ruehl, which opened in cost the company about $51 millionb in impairment charges in its first Abercrombie expects to book about $65 milliojn in pretax charges through the rest of the fiscak year as it winds down The company Wednesday also said it amended a credit agreement to exclude some Ruehl-related charges from requirementz under its covenant with the lender and reduced its available credit to $350 million from $450 Jeffries said the company is confident is has sufficientr cash on hand but “w e believe it is prudent to make these changes” in light of the recession-battere retail environment and the one-time Ruehl costs.
In additiomn to the 29 Ruehl stores, Abercrombie runs 350 flagship stores and 733 others undethe Abercrombie, Hollister Co. and Gilly Hickd nameplates.
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