🠈  Christopher & Banks  🠊

Christopher & Banks

As of 2022: Christopher & Banks is a brand owned by iMedia and ReStore. iMedia maintains a web site and has five stores.

The historic Christopher & Banks was a retailer of women's fashions based in Plymouth, Minnesota. The store targets women in the 40 through 60 year range. The company ran a separate brand called "CJ Banks" for plus size clothing but opted to return to a unified shopping experience for women in 2014.

At its height the company had 452 stores in 40 states.

The company was founded in 1956 by Gil Braun as Braun Fashions, then rebranded as Christopher & Banks in 2000.

Yahoo reported in 2017 that the company operates 514 stores in 43 states with over 1300 employees. They had 451 stores at the time of their bankruptcy.

Corporate History

These are highlights of the business's history drawn primarily from Wikipedia. The SEC reports for CBK said that investors created "Christopher & Banks Corporation" in 1986 to buy Braun and that they purchased the bulk of their clothes from G-III Apparel Group.

• 1956: Gil Braun opened his first store called Braun's Fashions in Minneapolis selling women's clothing.
• 1986: Marc Ostrow and James Fuld created "Christopher & Banks Corporation" to acquire Braun in a leveraged buyout for $25 million.⁵
• 1987: An entity named "C&B IPCO, LLC" registered trademark # 73680936 for the name "Christopher & Banks."
• 1992: Braun held a IPO on NASDAQ with symbol BFCI.
• 1993: Braun began moving production to Asia to lower costs.⁵
• 1996: Braun had expanded to 225 stores in 20 states but was suffering losses of $2 million on $45 million in sales and declared bankruptcy after which they had 172 stores.
• 1998: William Prange became CEO.
• 2000: Braun Rebranded as Christopher & Banks named after a popular in store brand. They changed the ticker to CHBS.
• 2000: Christopher & Banks launched CJ Banks brand to sell plus size clothing.
• 2002: Christopher & Banks moved to the NYSE with the symbol CBK.
• 2004: CB acquired Gilmore Brothers of Kalamazoo Mi which owned Acorn Stores.

  History of Gilmore Brothers

  I did not find a decent page on the history of Gilmore Brothers. The history seems fascinating. The Kalamazoo history page seems to be the best info³

  • 1881: John M. Gilmore opened a dry goods store on the west side of Burdick Street in Kalamazoo.
  • 1883: James Gilmore joined the firm to create Gilmore Brothers Department Store.
  • 1895: John Gilmore passed away.
  • 1908: James Gilmore passed away.
  • 1909: Carrie Gilmore, Jame's wife, expanded the store to its landmark 6 story building on Burdick.
  • 1913: Carrie married Dr. W. E. Upjohn founder of Upjohn Pharmaceutical
  • 1916: David Gilmore (1895 – 1979) began working at Gilmore Brothers. He married his step-sister Genevieve Upjohn. (Note, David would have been about 18 when his mother married into the Upjohn family.)
  • 1928: Harold Upjohn died suddenly. The Upjohn family invited David to join the firm.
  • 1955: Gilmore brought opened the first escalater in Kalamazoo.
  • 1966: Gilmore established the Gilmore Car Museum.
  • 1980: A tornado detroyed the back wall of Gilmores.
  • 199?: Gilmore acquired Acorn Stores

    At some point in the 1990s Gilmore acquired Acorn Stores, but I could not find a press release for the event.

    • 1991: Michael L. Wallace Inc. founded Acorn Stores.
    • 1993: Acorn Stores with 18 units filed for bankruptcy.
  • 1999: Gilmore Department Store closed and the building became the Kalamazoo City Centre.
• 2008: CBK closed its 36 Acorn stores.
• 2014: CBK began trimming its CJ Banks line and moved the plus sizes into its regular stores.
• 2019: The market value of CBK fell below $15 and NYSE delisted the store. The company began trading OTC as CBKC.⁶
• 2021: CBK filed for bankruptcy citing the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 2022: iMedia acquired assets. They relaunched Christopher & Banks brand and opened a web site and five stores.

profile page

References:

1. Wikipedia - Christopher Banks (Drawn 11/26/2022)
2. Wikipedia - Donald Gilmore (Drawn 11/26/2022)
3. Kalamazoo History - Gilmore Brothers (Drawn 11/26/2022)
4. Merger - CB acquires Gilmore (Drawn 11/26/2022)
5. Reference for Business - Christopher Banks (Drawn 11/26/2022)
6. Star Tribune - CBK Delisted from NYSE (Drawn 11/28/2022)
7. SEC - 2020 CBKC filing (Drawn 11/28/2022)

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