Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Bay gets new CEO

Hudson's Bay Co. on Tuesday appointed Canadian Bonnie Brooks as president and chief executive officer of its flagship Bay department store chain.

The move continues the makeover of Canada's oldest retailer since Hudson's Bay was purchased by American real estate magnate Richard Baker in July.

Brooks, who had been president of Hong Kong's Lane Crawford Joyce Group, will be charged with remaking the Bay into a "premier department store," said Jeffery Sherman, president and CEO of Hudson's Bay Company, which owns the Bay and Zellers.

Bay gets new CEOThe Bay wants to snag more shoppers.

"Her retail acumen will assist her as she elevates the Bay to a new position within the Canadian retail landscape," Sherman said in a news release.

Brooks is believed to be the first female CEO at the Bay.

Canadian heritage

In Canada, Brooks is best known as senior vice-president of marketing at Canada's Holt Renfrew in the late 1980s and editor of Flare magazine between 1992 and 1994.

Brooks said she welcomes the challenge at the Bay.

"The role to transform the Bay from its existing format to world class was too compelling to pass up," said Brooks on Tuesday.

New executives

She represents the third major hire by HBC in the past month as the company tries to set a more upscale course for the venerable retailer.

Back in July, Baker appointed Sherman, a long-time industry veteran who ran Bloomingdale's and Ralph Lauren, as the company's CEO. Then, Mark Foote, who held executive spots at Canadian Tire Corp. and Loblaw Companies Ltd., was hired to run Zellers.

HBC wants to change the focus of the Bay, making it a more upscale fashion chain while carving space within the more discount end of the store market for Zellers, the company has said in the past.

Earlier this year, NRDC Equity Partners, which had been a minority investor in HBC, and True North Retail Investments purchased HBC and promised to spend $500 million US fixing up the 94-store Bay chain and the Zellers outlets.

Industry experts said in recent years, the Bay lost its retailing focus under former owner Jerry Zucker, who died in April. Zucker was seen as an effective cost-cutting executive, but not someone well versed in how best to carve out market share in Canada's crowded consumer market.

As a result, the Bay had trouble selling effectively to a target market and, instead, wound up as downscale retailer, industry watchers said.



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