JCPenney Planning Store Closures

Department store JCPenney (Plano, Texas) has announced it was close as many as 140 stores and two distribution centers.

Those stores represent 14 percent of the retailer’s total store portfolio, according to a press release, but less than 5 percent of annual sales.

“During the year, it became evident the stores that could fully execute the company's growth initiatives of beauty, home refresh and special sizes generated significantly higher sales and a more vibrant in-store shopping environment," said Marvin R. Ellison, JCPenney’s chairman and ceo. "We believe the relevance of our brick-and-mortar portfolio will be driven by the implementation of these initiatives consistently to a larger percent of our stores. Therefore, our decision to close stores will allow us to raise the overall brand standard of the company and allocate capital more efficiently.”