Broadway Stores - The 1970s-1980s

The 1970s-1980s

In 1972, Prentis Hale retired as chairman, Edward Carter assumed the chairmanship and Philip M. Hawley (who started as a women's sportswear buyer in 1958) became company president. In 1974, in a news release it states, CHH stated that to reflect the executives' contributions, the corporate parent was adopting the name Carter Hawley Hale Stores, Inc. The new name was a major tongue twister, and stock analysts sometimes called it "Ego, Inc." In 1977, Carter retired. Hawley was appointed CEO.

The company continued to be an active acquirer, in 1972 acquiring Bergdorf Goodman in New York, Holt Renfrew of Montreal, Canada, the very famous Sunset House in Los Angeles, and Walden Books, which it purchased from K-Mart. After attempting an ill-fated, unsuccessful hostile takeover of Marshall Field in 1977, the company acquired the venerable but tattered John Wanamaker's of Philadelphia for $60 million (cash) in April 1978. That was followed by a stock swap for Thalhimers of Richmond, Virginia in August 1978. Contempo Casuals was a May, 1979, takeover. Emporium and Capwell's were merged to form a unified San Francisco Bay-area presence as Emporium-Capwell in 1979, Weinstock's moved into Utah and Reno, Nevada, and The Broadway stores were split into separate Los Angeles and Phoenix-based divisions as the chain expanded into Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. Sales increased, but profits did not. The saying on Wall Street was "God gave them Southern California, and they blew it."

Faced with continuing poor results, and two hostile takeover attempts by The Limited in 1984 and 1986, the company, still led by Phillip M. Hawley, reacted by first selling Waldenbooks to K-mart in 1985, Holt Renfrew to the Weston Family in April 1986, Wanamaker's to A. Alfred Taubman's Woodward & Lothrop in January 1987 and then splitting off the desirable specialty store business as Neiman-Marcus Group, Inc. (encompassing the Neiman-Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman and Contempo Casuals stores). The company that had rescued Carter Hawley Hale from The Limited takeover-attempts, theater owner/soft-drink bottler-cum-investment company General Cinema (later renamed Harcourt General) assumed majority ownership of Neiman-Marcus Group as its reward. Thalhimer's was sold to May Department Stores in December 1990.