Gap Looking To Close Hundreds of Stores at Malls 'Quickly and Aggressively'

Gap plans to 'quickly' close hundreds of Gap-brand stores that are 'dragging down the brand,' the company told analysts on Tuesday. From a report: The retailer said Tuesday evening that it still has 775 Gap-branded stores globally, in addition to those under the Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta banners. Gap Inc. has more than 3,000 stores around the world. The namesake brand, however, has been the weakest unit of the company of late. In the fiscal third quarter, sales at Gap stores open for at least 12 months fell 7 percent, while those at Old Navy and Banana Republic were positive.

'There are hundreds of other stores that likely don't fit our vision for the future of Gap brand specialty store, whether in terms of profitability, customer experience, traffic trends,' CEO Art Peck said Tuesday evening during a call with analysts. 'The range from the very best to the very worst stores is extremely broad.' Peck said that should the company 'address' the bottom half of its fleet of Gap stores, it could contribute more than $100 million to earnings. He added the company is looking to make decisions about shutting stores 'with urgency,' including looking at closing some of Gap's 'amazing flagships.' 'There likely will be a cash cost to exit many of these stores, which we will attempt to minimize,' Peck told analysts. 'But I plan to exit those that do not fit the future vision quickly. I'm going to move thoughtfully but aggressively.'

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