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Home retailer eyes exits on 80-plus stores

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On June 23, 2017, the CEO of Bed Bath & Beyond told investment analysts the company could close as many as 100 stores in five years depending on negotiations for leases coming up for renewal. Click ahead to see some other companies that are closing or have shuttered many locations.
On June 23, 2017, the CEO of Bed Bath & Beyond told investment analysts the company could close as many as 100 stores in five years depending on negotiations for leases coming up for renewal.
Click ahead to see some other companies that are closing or have shuttered many locations.
Robert McLeroy / San Antonio Express-News

The CEO of Bed Bath and Beyond is holding open the possibility of closing as many as 100 stores in the coming five years, pending the outcome of negotiations with landlords as leases come up for renewal.

CEO Steven Temares did not cite the locations of stores on the cusp of lease renewals, with Bed Bath & Beyond having southwestern Connecticut locations in Stamford, Norwalk, Danbury, Brookfield, Fairfield, Milford and Shelton. The Union, N.J.-based company also runs Christmas Tree Shops which has a Danbury store.

Bed Bath and Beyond is offsetting the closure of between 15 and 20 stores this year with 30 new openings, with Temares not indicating in a Friday conference call whether it will continue that pace of new openings in future years.

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“Listen, we’ve been criticized for not closing stores — the problem is that all the stores are profitable,” Temares said. “But now we do have a lot of leases that are coming up for renewal, so ... that’s a clear opportunity for us to say, ‘OK, over the next five years what do we see happening?’... If we are not able to negotiate those kinds of renewals then we will close the stores.”

In its first fiscal quarter ending May 27, Bed Bath and Beyond reported a 39 percent drop in earnings from a year earlier to $72.3 million, along with a slight increase in sales which topped $2.7 billion.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; www.twitter.com/casoulman

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Alexander Soule is a business writer with Hearst Connecticut Media Group. He covers the state economy and other business news as well as penning a monthly column on personal finance for Connecticut Magazine. Before joining Hearst Connecticut, Alex started a growth economy website called Enterprise CT chronicling Connecticut startups. Before that, Alex spent six years with the Fairfield County Business Journal, and before that the Boston Business Journal, the Rochester Business Journal, Mass High Tech and InsuranceTimes in Boston. Alex is a Maine native who served a two-year enlistment in the U.S. Army (Fifth Infantry Division at Fort Polk, La.) before attending Connecticut College.