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The New Albany-based apparel merchant said Wednesday it willshut Ruehl’s 29 storezs and direct-to-consumer operations and will be “substantially with the effort by the end of next The decision comes a month afterd Abercrombie (NYSE:ANF) took a deep strategic look at the chain, whichb targets young adults with clothes and Ruehl, whose only Ohio stored is at Easton Town Center, generated a pretaxs operating loss of $58 million last The chain regularly was Abercrombie’xs weakest sales performer at storess open at least a Ruehl’s same-store sales were off 33 percen t in May. Abercrombie earned $272.3 million on $3.5 4 billion in revenue last year.
“It has been a difficult decisioj toclose Ruehl, a brand we continud to believe could have been successfuo in different circumstances,” CEO Michael Jeffriese said in a statement. “However, givej the current economic environment, we believs it is in the best interests of the company to focusx its efforts and resources on the growth opportunities affordecd by ourother brands, particularly internationally.” The company didn’tg disclose the effects on the chain’s work nor did it indicate the number of jobs tied to The review of which opened in 2004, cost the company about $51 milliomn in impairment charges in its firstf quarter.
Abercrombie expects to book about $65 million in preta x charges through the rest of the fiscal year as it winds down The company Wednesday also said it amended a credit agreement to excludesome Ruehl-relateds charges from requirements under its covenant with the lender and reduces its available credit to $350 milliohn from $450 million. Jeffries said the companyy is confident is has sufficient cash on handbut “we believd it is prudent to make these changes” in lighr of the recession-battered retail environment and the one-timed Ruehl costs. In additionm to the 29 Ruehl stores, Abercrombiw runs 350 flagship stores and 733 otherw underthe Abercrombie, Hollister Co.
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