🠈 Macy's 🠊
Macy's Inc.
Macy's Inc., formerly Federated Department Stores, is a retail giant that has merged its way into becoming the second largest retailer in the United States. The company is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. Macy's currently trades under the symbol M.
Speaking of anchor stores, the question "Whatever happened to?" can often be answered as: That is now part of Macy's. Here is a summary of Macy's merger history from wikipedia, drawn 9/13/2008:
Federated Department Stores was established in Columbus in 1929 as a holding company for Abraham & Straus (est. 1865), F&R Lazarus & Company (est. 1851). Federated acquired Bloomingdales (est 1861) in 1930. Federated Department stores continued to grow with the aquisition oflocal department stores. Acquisitions include Rike Kumler of Dayton, Burdines of Miami, Rich's of Atlanta, Foley's of Houston, Sanger Brothers of Dallas, A. Harris of Dallas, Boston Store of Milwaukee, MainStreet of Chicago, Bullock's of Los Angeles, I. Magnin, of San Francisco, Gold Circle, Richway Discount Department Stores, Golden Circle and Twin Fair, Inc..
Notable achievements of the store include Fred Lazarus Jr.'s influencing Franklin Delano Roosevelt to change Thanksgiving Day from the Last Thursday in November to the Fourth Thursday in November to increase the number of shopping days for Christmas.
Federated Department Stores became part of the leveraged buyout trend in the late 1980s, and went bankrupt in 1990 to re-emerge as a publicly traded company in 1992.
Acquisition of Macy's
Federated Department Stores acquired Macy's. which had also recently suffered a bankruptcy, in 1994.
Macy's was founded in New York City in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. In 1902, under the direction of Isidor Straus, Macy's moved to Herald Square where the store gradually expanded into the "world's largest department store." Mr. Strauss met an untimely end on April 15th, 1912 while taking a cruise on the supposedly unsinkable ship Titanic.
Acquisition of May Department Stores
Federated Department Stores acquired May Department Store in 2005. In 2007 Federated Department Stores changed its name to Macy's. They changed their stock symbol from FD to M. (NOTE, the NYSE had been reserving the prized symbol "M" for Microsoft hoping to lure MSFT from the NASDAQ.)
May Department Stores underwent a merger history similar to Federated Department Stores. May Department Store was founded in Denver in 1877. Mergers include the Kaufmann's chain of Pittsburgh, Daniels & Fisher Company of Denver, The Hecht Company of Baltimore, The Meier & Frank chain of Portland, Oregon.
In 1986 May acquired a conglomerate called Associated Dry Goods. This conglomerate included Hahne & Co. of Newark, The William Hengerer Company of Buffalo, Lord and Taylor of New York along with Stewart and Co.
Acquisitions of the group include The Diamond Department Store of Charleston, JW Robinson Co of Los Angeles, Goldwater's of Phoenix, Denver Dry Goods Co., L.S. Ayres of Indianapolis, Joseph Home Co. of Pittsburgh.
May Department Store owned Payless Shoes which they divested shortly before the merger with Federated.
Acquistion of ZCMI
In 1999 May Department Store acquired Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI). ZCMI was established in Salt Lake City in 1868 by the LDS Church. ZCMI was designed to be the primary source of goods for members of the LDS Church. As such the store contained multiple departments earning ZCMI a claim to being the first department store.
May Department Stores changed the name of the ZMCI stores to Meier and Frank. After the merger with Macy's the stores changed their name to Macy's.