Whether you compete against it, sell it or just shop at its stores, what’s happening at Macy’s remains of utmost importance to you and probably your company. So while still facing pressure from activist investors who want to break up the company and perhaps spin off its Bloomingdales and Bluemercury units, Macy’s says it remains committed to its current strategy which emphasizes keeping the three nameplates together.
“There are synergies that are leveraged between the three brands, between warehousing, legal, finance, back-end operations, joint brand negotiation,” CEO Tony Spring said at a recent retail conference, addressing demands from outside groups that are unhappy with Macy’s financial results and even want to see it go private. “There’s just so much opportunity for us to leverage the scale of the portfolio.”
Spring, who took over as CEO of the company last year after a career at its Bloomingdales unit, told the conference, “As you look at other companies deciding they don’t want to be in the public market, or they want to join together with others because they need to be bigger to be successful — we also need that strength of combined value.
“But we also will distinguish and make sure that [none] of these brands becomes one another. The key is for the customer to find something special, something different at Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury, and at the same time for us to continue to try to make the case to the public markets that this three-brand portfolio has more value than we are showing today.”
Earlier this month Macy’s reported that comp store sales at all three of its brands rose slightly in its most recent quarter, up 0.2 percent. But that represented its biggest gains in nearly three years. Spring said the company remains concerned about the balance of 2025, particularly in light of potentially increased tariffs on many of the products its sells. It is also in the midst of a downsizing of its store fleet, primarily under the Macy’s banner, and that would be reflected in lower overall sales. Comp store results for 2025 are being projected at a 2 percent fall-off.
Still Spring likes the direction the company is taking and the continuation of its three-pronged strategy that represents a “portfolio business that speaks to 40 million-plus active customers.”