Retail

Bloomberg Hermes International unveiled its first products from a new beauty division, adding $67 lipsticks to a brand better known for $9,000-plus Birkin bags and $400 silk scarves. By expanding its offer in cosmetics, Hermes is testing the waters of a category that has long driven sales and profit for rivals like LVMH’s Christian Dior and Chanel. Hermes, which says …

Bloomberg In an almost deserted mall, the few shoppers hurry past wearing face masks. In the luxury stores, sales assistants, also in masks, outnumber customers — if they have any at all. To pass the time, staff chat with each other or play with their phones. This isn’t a scene from some dystopian movie. Instead, in Hong Kong’s usually bustling …

Bloomberg Macy’s Inc plans to close 125 of its least productive department stores — almost a quarter of the total — over the next three years and cut about 2,000 jobs as part of a large restructuring. The stores, including 30 that are already in the process of being closed, account for about $1.4 billion in annual sales, the company …

Bloomberg A group including two of Forever 21 Inc’s biggest landlords has offered to buy the bankrupt retailer for $81 million, a fraction of what the international fashion pioneer was once worth. The consortium of Simon Property Group Inc, Brookfield Property Partners LP and Authentic Brands Group LLC is seeking to buy substantially all of the company’s assets, according to …

Bloomberg Hudson’s Bay Co Chairman Richard Baker was in talks about selling the Canadian retailer’s stake in its European business when he started to formulate his own plan to take the owner of Saks Fifth Avenue private, according to a regulatory filing. The document offers a look into Baker’s role in the sale of Hudson’s Bay’s stake in a joint …

Bloomberg Reynolds Consumer Products Inc, the maker of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil and Hefty trash bags, rose 9.8% in its trading debut after raising $1.23 billion in the biggest initial public offering by a household goods maker. Reynolds, backed by New Zealand billionaire Graeme Hart’s Rank Group, sold 47.17 million shares for $26 each after marketing them for $25 to …

Bloomberg Levi Strauss & Co’s profitability rose in its latest quarter, with the jeans maker citing higher prices and fewer sales to off-price retailers. The company also reported continuing weakness in its US wholesale business, however. The shares alternated between losses and gains in late trading. Gross margin, a key gauge of profitability, rose 1.1 percentage point from a year …

Bloomberg Intu Properties Plc has written down the value of one of the UK’s largest malls, offering a glimpse at its parlous finances ahead of a planned equity raise. The company notified holders of 485 million pounds ($631 million) of bonds secured against Intu Metrocentre, a large mall in northeast England, that the debt secured against the property now accounts …

Bloomberg Luckin Coffee Inc, the Chinese challenger to Starbucks Corp, has lost nearly a third of its value since the outbreak of the coronavirus. However, at least one analyst maintains this may be just a blip for the company. The upstart has closed all of its coffee shops in Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei province and the epicenter of …

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc’s valuation briefly topped $1 trillion after its results beat expectations, with analysts applauding the popularity of the e-commerce giant’s one-day shipping initiative and the performance of its cloud-computing business. Shares surged as much as 9.9% in their biggest intraday gain since 2017 before paring back gains to trade below the $1 trillion threshold. The stock hit a …