🠈  J. Jill  🠊

J. Jill

J. Jill offers women's clothing through an online catalog and mall based stores. The company had about 275 stores in 2019. J Jill's headquarters are in Quincy, Ma. They trade on the NYSE with the symbol JILL.

I examined the stock in Nov 2019. The company was making a profit but it had $485 million in debt and a market value of just $80 million.

Corporate H2001, J. Jill sold 1.2 million shares,istory

The company started as a catalog. A group called DM Management aggressively marketed the catalog and grew a customer base of over a million subscribers^2,4. The company then became a mall based store.

The mall stores actually undermined the catalog since they had to collect sales tax. The company moved into internet marketing. The success was limited by the fact that they had to collect sales tax in every state where they had a store.

The company declined and fell into the hands of private equity firms. TowerBrook, one of the funds created by George Soros, held an IPO for the firm in 20017. The price fell from $13.00 to $1.48. Investors who bought the IPO lost 88% of their investment. The lesson here is never buy an IPO from a private equity firm.

• 1959: Company started as a specialty store in Berkshires of Massachusetts.
• 1988: DM Management, which was created to buy catalog stores, acquired J. Jill.
• 1993: DM held its IPO.
• 1994: DM acquired Carroll Reed catalog.
• 1996: DM consolidated its catalogs to just Nicole Summers and J. Jill.
• 1998: DM built a warehouse in Tilton, NH.
• 1999: DM changed its name to J. Jill Group, Inc. with the ticker JILL. The stores claimed to have over a million catalog customers.
• 1999: Company started opening retail stores in malls.
• 1999: The company shortened the name of Nicole Summers to Nicole then dropped it altogether.
• 2001: J Jill had a secondary offering of 1.2 million shares which it used for stores. It expanded to 51 stores in 25 states. This meant they had to collect sales tax which reduced catalog sales.⁵
• 2002: J Jill started the J.Jill Compassion Fund to provide clothes to homeless women.
• 2006: Talbots, which had 1,085 stores, acquired J. Jill, which had 205 stores, for about $517 million.⁶
• 2009: Golden Gate Capital acquired J. Jill from Talbots for $75 million.⁷
• 2011: Arcapita acquired a majority stake in J Jill.
• 2015: TowerBrook Capital Partners a spin off of George Soros' funds, acquired Arcapita's and Golden Gate's interest in J Jill for a rumored $400 million.⁸.
• 2017: TowerBrook sold half its stake in J Jill in an IPO at $13 per share with the symbol JILL on the NYSE. The price has since fallen to $1.48 due mainly to the dept TowerBrook loaded on the stock.^3,10
• 2019: The stock price of JILL had fallen to $1.48

profile page

References:

1. Wikipedia - J Jill (Drawn 11/3/2019)
2. Reference for Business - J Jill (Drawn 11/3/2019)
3. Motley Fool - J Jill IPO (Drawn 11/3/2019)
4. Funding Universe - J Jill (Drawn 11/3/2019)
5. Encyclopedia.com - J Jill (Drawn 11/3/2019)
6. BusinessWire: Talbots Completes Acquisition of J Jill (Drawn 11/3/2019)
7. NY Times - Dealbook: Golden Gate Acquires J Jill (Drawn 11/3/2019)
8. Reuters - TowerBrook to Acquire J Jill (Drawn 11/3/2019)
9. PE Hub - Arcapita Acquires Majority Stake in J Jill (Drawn 11/3/2019)
10. Business Insider : TowerBrook dumps half its share of J Jill in IPO (Drawn 11/3/2019)

Directory Listings:

• Phoenix Color - Apparel: J. Jill
• Pima County - Apparel: J. Jill
• Boulder Color - Apparel: J. Jill
• Colorado Springs Color - Clothing Stores: J. Jill
• Denver Color - Apparel: J. Jill
• Fort Collins Color - Apparel: J. Jill
• Salt Lake Sites - Apparel: J. Jill

Prev ~ ~ Index ~ ~ Next