US Retailers That Will Close the Most Stores! What Recovery?

• Retailers That Will Close the Most Stores! 
  by Douglas A. McIntyre, Samuel Weigley, Alexander E.M. Hess and Michael B. Sauter, 24/7 Wall St., http://xfinity.comcast.net/ 
  It is the time of year again, when America’s largest retailers release those  critical holiday season figures and disclose their annual sales. A review of  these numbers tells us a great deal about how most of the companies will do in  the upcoming year. And while successful retailers in 2012 may add stores this  year, those that have performed very poorly may have to cut locations during  2013 to improve margins or reverse losses.
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  For many retailers, the sales situation is so bad that it is not a question  of whether they will cut stores, but when and how many. Most recently, Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE:  BKS) decided it had too many stores to maintain profits. Its CEO recently  said he plans to close as many as a third of the company’s locations.
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  Several of America’s largest retailers have been battered for years. Most  have been undermined by a combination of e-commerce competition, often from  Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:  AMZN) and more successful retailers in the same areas. Borders and Circuit  City are two of the best examples of retailers that were destroyed by larger  bricks-and-mortar competition and consumers transitioning to online shopping.  These large, badly damaged retailers could not possibly keep their stores  open.
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  24/7 Wall St. reviewed the weakest large U.S. retailers and picked those that  likely will not be profitable next year if they keep their current location  counts. 24/7 analyzed the retailers’ store counts, recent financial data, online presences, prospects against direct  competitors and precedents set by other large retailers that have downsized by  shuttering locations. We then forecast how many stores each retailer will have  to close this year to sharply increase its prospects financially, even if some  of those location closings do not occur for several years. These forecasts were  based on drops in same-store sales, drops in revenue, a review of direct  competitors, Internet sales and the size of cuts at retailers  in the same sector, if those were available.
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