In its heyday, Le Chateau had nine stores along a roughly three-kilometre stretch of Ste-Catherine Street in Montreal.
The Canadian retailer was a staple of nearly every mall and shopping district in the country, with 240 locations at its peak.
“The more sales we made, the more stores we opened and the more stores we opened, the more sales we made,” says Franco Rocchi, a Le Chateau executive that started with the clothing brand four decades ago as a sales clerk at one of the Ste-Catherine Street locations.
“That was the retail formula back then and it worked. It was all about brick and mortar — not only for Le Chateau but for Aldo, Gap and others throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s. We were in every primary market, secondary market and tertiary market.”
Le Chateau defined edgy clubwear, formal dresses and fashionable office attire for decades in Canada, but started facing increasing competition from foreign retailers like H&M and Zara in the early 2000s.
By 2014, Le Chateau was losing money. But the company had a plan: Close 100 stores over five years, with a return to profitability in 2020.
“We did it the honourable way,” Rocchi says. “We had leases, we had handshakes, we had good relationships with our landlords. We thought we could navigate the five-year plan.”
But the exit strategy the retailer spent half a decade working toward hit a major snag.
“The plan included a turnaround, a return to profitability,” Rocchi says. “But the irony was that magic year we worked towards for five years was 2020.”
Pandemic shutdowns not only shuttered the retailer’s stores throughout 2020. Proms, weddings, galas and parties — key drivers of the retailer’s dress sales — were outright cancelled.
Le Chateau filed for creditor protection in October 2020, joining the ranks of dozens of big-name retailers that buckled under the weight of COVID-19 restrictions.
In June, Suzy’s Inc. — the company behind women’s clothing brand Suzy Shier — stepped in to buy Le Chateau’s intellectual property and now it’s making a comeback with the online launch of an evening wear collection ahead of the holidays.
The so-called glamour capsule unveiled Tuesday offers shoppers a hint of what to expect with the brand’s official relaunch under its new owner set for spring.
Rocchi — now senior marketing director of Suzy/Le Chateau — says the curated, limited-edition collection highlights the brand’s focus on high-fashion occasion wear.
“Even as we were going through the challenge of closing stores, we actually started to see significant success in our dress business,” he says. “We were seeing year-over-year growth in our occasion business. We found our sweet spot, which was beautiful dresses at a great price point.”
The full collection planned for 2022 will include footwear, accessories and menswear, with women’s dress wear available in select Suzy Shier stores across the country.
“We will have stores within stores at about 35 Suzy locations across the country,” Rocchi explains. “It won’t just be Le Chateau products pushed into Suzy stores. It will be a clearly demarcated beautiful shop, so customers will know it’s Le Chateau.”
He adds that there will be no “cannibalization” between the brands, as Suzy Shier is focused on casual, weekend and work wear.
“We like to say our customers can wear Suzy by day and Le Chateau by night,” Rocchi says.
Indeed, the Suzy Shier website appears divided in half, with a model wearing a sweater and items like warm hats and gloves on one side, while a model is dressed in an evening gown on the other side along with items like sparkly “party tops.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 16, 2021
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
