JCPenney has weathered many storms in its 120-year history.
After completing its bankruptcy restructuring in 2020, undergoing new leadership changes, and going private, the retailer is ready to usher in a new era by returning to its roots.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last year, recently appointed CEO Marc Rosen said his company is not chasing new customers.
Instead, “The biggest difference this time is we are loving those who love us,” he said.
The company’s leader is confident it will succeed with a more concentrated focus in the future.
“We’re very clear and focused on our direction, who our customer is, and what are their needs and wants,” Rosen said, according to The Dallas Morning News.
“One of our critical success factors is that we’re all aligned; we all want to grow our businesses,” he added.
With $4 billion in debt, JCPenney fell into bankruptcy in May 2020 but reduced long-term outstanding by $500 million in December 2021. It now has $485 million in long-term debt with a liquidity of $1.5 billion, according to the DMN.
“We feel good about debt and our strong cash flow,” Rosen told the DMN.
Investment trust companies Simon Property Group and Brookfield Asset Management are JCPenney shareholders and deemed the company “unbelievably profitable,” the DMN reported.
“We’re very pleased where that company is positioned,” Simon Property CEO David Simon said in February, per the DMN. “We’re extremely pleased with the management team and all that they’re doing to reinvigorate the brand.”
Part of the brand’s new look is updating its product mix. Since 2019, JCPenney has launched or relaunched 25 brands, with 40% of them being new partnerships.
After losing its 15-year Sephora partnership to Kohl’s, the store chain launched JCPenney Beauty in October 2021; it features a collaboration with Thirteen Lune.
JCPenney Beauty will populate 608 stores this spring, according to the DMN.
Rosen says the brand will continue to evaluate its current store portfolio and opt to close underperforming stores.
Around one-third of JCPenney’s stores are located in Simon and Brookfield malls, according to Women’s Wear Daily. The company has 15 stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
“We have the freedom to look at our real estate portfolio and do what we need to do,” Rosen said. “But Simon and Brookfield own some of the best malls and have some of the strongest traffic,” he said, according to the DMN.
The new-look JCPenney has also downsized its headquarters, moving back into the 318,000-square-foot building on Legacy Drive in Plano that it formerly occupied by summer, according to the DMN.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the new headquarters represent the largest lease signed in the DFW area in 2022.
