Macy’s CEO Tony Spring said Thursday on a Q3 earnings call that the retailer will close about 65 locations by the end of January 2025, which is an additional 15 stores more than what was previously planned. Adrian Mitchell, Macy’s chief financial officer, said the store closures were limited to underperforming locations.
Macy’s (NYSE: M) was down about 0.3% in midday trading, after falling 1.3% Thursday morning. On the call, Spring announced total net sales were $4.7 billion, down 2.4% from last year and unchanged from what the company had reported in November.
The closures are part of the struggling retailer’s “Bold New Chapter” plan to shutter 150 locations through 2026. Spring said that the initiative “gets us even closer to . . . becoming a more profitable Macy’s, Inc.”
Macy’s reported comp sales rose 3.2%, driven by women’s advanced contemporary apparel. It also saw growth in beauty and digital categories, along with new brands, such as Jenni Kayne and Kim Kardashian’s Skims.
Another focus for the retailer is accelerating luxury growth, with both Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury posting positive third-quarter comps as customers continue to respond well to their breadth of product, price points, and market and private brands.
Macy’s had postponed its full third-quarter earnings report and year-end outlook pending an internal investigation into an employee who allegedly concealed around $150 million in expenses over several years. That individual, who managed small-package delivery-expense accounting, made fraudulent accounting entries that masked the discrepancies.
On the call, Mitchell said that the investigation concluded the erroneous entries “had an immaterial impact on our financial results over the cumulative period the actions took place . . . and there was no impact to revenues, impact to cash, or inventories as all vendors were fully paid.”
He confirmed those entries added up a combined $151 million taking place from Q4 2021 through the fiscal quarter that ended November 2. During the same period, the company recognized approximately $4.36 billion of delivery expenses.
Macy’s is among a growing list of retailers struggling to keep afloat as consumers change purchasing habits, shopping online more than or instead of in stores, and are spending less due to concerns about the economy.