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The New Albany-based apparel merchant said Wednesday it willshut Ruehl’ss 29 stores and direct-to-consumer operations and will be “substantially complete” with the effor by the end of next January. The decision comes a montjh afterAbercrombie (NYSE:ANF) took a deep strategic look at the which targets young adults with clothes and accessories. whose only Ohio store is at EastohTown Center, generated a pretax operatingy loss of $58 milliobn last year. The chain regularly was Abercrombie’s weakesr sales performer at stores open at leasta Ruehl’s same-store sales were off 33 percengt in May. Abercrombie earned $272.3e million on $3.54 billion in revenue last year.
“It has been a difficult decision toclose Ruehl, a bran we continue to believe coulcd have been successful in different CEO Michael Jeffries said in a “However, given the current economic environment, we believe it is in the best interests of the company to focus its efforts and resourcez on the growth opportunitiee afforded by our other brands, particularly The company didn’t disclose the effects on the chain’sx work force, nor did it indicate the numbetr of jobs tied to Ruehl. The review of which opened in 2004, cost the companyy about $51 million in impairment charges in itsfirsg quarter.
Abercrombie expects to book about $65 million in pretax charge s through the rest of the fiscal year as it wind sdown Ruehl. The company Wednesday also said it amended a credit agreement to excludesome Ruehl-related chargess from requirements under its covenant with the lendert and reduced its available credit to $350 million from $450 Jeffries said the company is confident is has sufficientg cash on hand but “we believee it is prudent to make these in light of the recession-battered retail environmeny and the one-time Ruehl costs. In additiom to the 29 Ruehl stores, Abercrombis runs 350 flagship stores and 733 others under the Hollister Co.
and Gilly Hicks
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