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Caldor

Caldor

Caldor was a chain of discount department stores based in Norwalk, Connecticut. The chain declared bankruptcy in 1995 and closed all its stores on May 15, 1999.

History

Beginning

The first store was opened by Carl and Dorothy Bennett in Port Chester, New York, in 1951; the name was taken from parts of the couple's first names. Caldor had expanded to several locations by the mid-1960s, and by the 1980s, had locations across the East Coast, stretching from New Hampshire to Virginia. As of late 1998, Caldor had 145 stores in 10 states. Caldor was also the site of many former J.M. Fields locations. Carl Bennett is still active in May 2008, but Dorothy Bennett passed away on May 2, 2008 of a lengthy illness. She was 82 years old.

The Bennetts sold the company to Associated Dry Goods Corporation (ADG) in 1981. ADG would merge with May Department Stores in 1986. May sold the chain in November 1990 in a leveraged buyout. In 1991, Caldor went public and earned over $2.5 billion in revenue that year, becoming the fourth largest retailer in the United States behind Kmart, Target, and Wal-Mart. That same year Caldor came out with a new red logo and in 1992 introduced a new format for their stores. Throughout the early 1990s, Caldor expanded and renovated many of their older stores. By 1994, Caldor had 166 stores in 10 states.

Slogan

The company used many different slogans. The first slogan was "Where shopping is always a pleasure", and was used up until the mid-1980s. The next slogan was "You'll Never Not Find It At Caldor" and was used from 1985 to 1988. The next slogan was "Caldor, your everyday discount store", and was used from 1988 to 1992. The final slogan used was "Bring home the difference", and was used from 1993 until the company closed. In the later part of the 90's nearing Caldor's closure, they also sometimes used the alternative slogan "Check out the change". Caldor also used a special holiday slogan. This slogan was "Caldor for the holidays", and was used on all the chain's commercials for holiday specials and sales. Throughout the 1990s, the chain used the holiday slogan "Share the Joy," which some store associates reworked.

Advertising Scandal

Caldor relied heavily on a weekly multi-color sales flier to generate business. Fliers were distributed weekly to advertise sales that ran from Sunday through Saturday. In November of 1998, the company suffered a public-relations blow, perhaps fatally, when its sales flier featured a prominent photograph of two grinning boys playing the board game "Scrabble" with the word "RAPE" spelled out in the center of the board. The "P" tile then formed the first letter in the word "PAL," while the initial "R" had been used to create "WRITE." Since no double- or triple-score spaces were involved in the placement evident in the photograph, the word would have earned six points: one each for "R," "A," and "E," and three for "P." Eleven million copies of the flier were distributed to the public via an 85-newspaper distribution chain. Caldor released a statement pressing its mystification over how the image was created and got past proofreaders.

Bankruptcy

In 1995, Caldor filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The chain found itself unable to compete with the lower prices and wider selection of such stores as Wal-Mart (which had acquired several former Caldor stores), causing a dramatic loss in sales. Some analysts believed that in the 1990s, Caldor management shifted too much towards non-profit based metrics such as safety and the appearance of having clean shelves.

Caldor also had trouble meeting its financial goals. Especially critical was its inability to meet its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and restructuring numbers. Shortly before filing for bankruptcy, Caldor had $1.2 billion in assets and $883 million in liabilities, the lowest amount of assets and the highest amount of liabilities the company had since it was sold by May Department Stores in 1990. After the bankruptcy, Caldor closed 10 underperforming stores in 1996.

Closure

In January 1998, Caldor had $1.2 billion in liabilities and $949 million in assets, one of the worst deficits the company has ever had. A few months later, Caldor closed 12 underperfoming stores located mostly around Washington, D.C.. This along with the slow financial progress of the chain caused its secured creditors to force the chain into liquidation, feeling that their shareholders would benefit more from the liquidation of the company than if they allowed it to remain in business. In an attempt to prevent the creditors from liquidating the chain, Caldor executives brought in a mediator in an attempt to come up with an agreement that would keep the chain open, but no agreement could be reached, and Caldor was out of options. On January 22, 1999, Caldor announced it was liquidating its remaining merchandise and closing all of its 145 stores.

The last Caldor store closed permanently on Saturday, May 15, 1999. At the time the chain closed, it had 22,000 employees and 145 stores in nine East Coast states.

The chain sold $2.5 billion in sales in its last full year open.

Locations

Connecticut

Delaware

Maryland

Massachusetts

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New York

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

Virginia

See also

References

External links

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Sunday October 05, 2008 at 17:58:53 PDT (GMT -0700)
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