Fortunoff Closes Store, May Liquidate

Fortunoff Fine Jewelry & Silverware LLC (Uniondale, N.Y.) has closed its Manhattan store and is in talks to liquidate most of its merchandise, according to Bloomberg News. The 86-year-old jewelry-store chain may file for bankruptcy soon.

The lease on the company’s store at 57th Street and Fifth Avenue – next to Bergdorf Goodman and near Prada, Tiffany & Co. and Louis Vuitton – expired Jan. 31, 2009. The plan had originally been for Fortunoff to close the store and move its merchandise into Lord & Taylor, after the department- store chain’s contract with another jeweler, Finlay Fine Jewelry Corp. (New York), expired. But a Fortunoff spokeswoman told Bloomberg that Lord & Taylor no longer plans to sell the Fortunoff jewelry.

Liquidation would come one year after Fortunoff last sought bankruptcy protection and was purchased by NRDC Equity Partners LLC (Purchase, N.Y.). At the time, the investor said it planned to double the number of Fortunoff stores and incorporate Fortunoff jewelry and bridal registry units into existing Lord & Taylor stores, which NRDC also owns. NRDC bought Fortunoff fin 2008 or $110 million, including $80 million in cash.

Other retailers, such as J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (Plano, Texas), have cited jewelry among their worst-performing products as consumers abandon discretionary purchases to contend with rising joblessness and plunging home values.