Buying Up

I think it’s fascinating that Macy’s may very well be bought out by a suitor like Hudson’s Bay or the like {see this article on Seeking seekingalpha.com/article/4052085-macys-think-buyout-coming-without-hudsons-bay and this article on Forbes forbes.com/sites/richardkestenbaum/2017/02/03/how-to-understand-macys-possible-acquisition-by-hudsons-bay/#7a5982bb6340) mostly because Macy’s has become what it is (and is still shaping itself into what it hopes to become) by a series of acquisitions of its own. For example, did you know that Macy’s (a.k.a. Federated Department Stores, owing to Macy’s 1929 origins as a holding company of department stores) heavily expanded by purchasing Broadway Department stores in 1995 and May Department Stores ten years later? {See crunchbase.com/acquisition/macys-acquires-broadway-stores--869f0ff8 and phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=84477&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=679294.}

 

And in 2015, Macy’s purchased the privately held upscale cosmetics retailer and manufacturer Bluemercury, seeking to substantially upgrade its revenues in the highly lucrative beauty sector {see businessinsider.com/macys-is-transforming-into-a-discount-retailer-2017-4/#our-first-impressions-were-positive-on-a-gray-friday-afternoon-the-ground-floor-beauty-section-was-pretty-busy-2}. Given that Bluemercury is winning awards for its retail strategy {see Barry Beck, Founder and Chief Operating Officer, Bluemercury, Named Total Retail's 2017 Retailer of the Year}, it’s conceivable to preliminarily conclude that the acquisition strategy has worked to keep Macy’s relevant when other such brands have not. Numbers say Macy’s is actually in or near the top five in online revenues, so Macy’s is a robust retailer too. The brand has been established as iconic for generations and so naturally it isn’t and shouldn’t be going anywhere, even if a few shares change hands.