Broadway Stores, Inc., was an American retailer based in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

. Known through its history as Carter Hawley Hale Stores and Broadway Hale Stores over time, it acquired other retail store chains in regions outside its California home base and became in certain retail sectors a regional and national retailer in the 1970s and 1980s. The company was able to survive takeover attempts in 1984 and 1986, and also a

Chapter 11 bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, w ...

filing in 1991 by selling off most of its assets until August 1995 when its banks refused to advance enough additional credit in order for the company to be able to pay off suppliers. At that point, the company sold itself to

Federated Department Stores Macy's, Inc. (previously Federated Department Stores, Inc.) is an American holding company of department stores. Upon its establishment in 1929, Federated held ownership of the regional department store chains Abraham & Straus, Lazarus (departm ...

for $1.6 billion (~$ in ) with the acquisition being completed on October 12, 1995.

History

Early history

In 1950, as

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

began to grow in population very rapidly and assumed dominance within the state, the fast-growing

The Broadway The Broadway was a mid-level department store chain headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1896 by English-born Arthur Letts Sr., and named after what was once the city's main shopping street, the Broadway became a dominant reta ...

Department Stores (founded in 1896) based there negotiated an all-stock merger with Hale Bros. Stores, Inc. Edward W. Carter, president of The Broadway, became the president of Broadway-Hale Stores. The newly enlarged company began to grow aggressively with its Broadway stores expanding south to

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

in 1961 and east to

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona. With over 1.6 million residents at the 2020 census, it is the ...

, in 1968. A mail order firm named the ''Sunset House'' was also acquired in 1968.Alternate Link
Alternate Link
In 1970, the company acquired Emporium-Capwell Co.,Alternate Link
Alternate Link
itself the holding company for Emporium in San Francisco (and suburbs) and Capwell's (H.C. Capwell Co.) in Oakland (and suburbs) and keeping their respective names on the stores in the San Francisco Bay Area. Also in 1969, Broadway-Hale acquired the then 3-unit

Neiman Marcus Neiman Marcus is an American department store chain founded in 1907 in Dallas, Texas by Herbert Marcus, his sister Carrie Marcus Neiman, and her husband Abraham Lincoln Neiman. It has been owned by Saks Global, a Corporate spin-off, spin-o ...

specialty department store, based in Dallas, Texas,Alternate Link
Alternate Link
and the Walden Book Co. (known more commonly as Waldenbooks)Link
and began to actively grow those businesses, nationwide.

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.Alternate Link
The new name was a major tongue twister, and stock analysts sometimes called it "Ego, Inc." ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'' reported in 1984 that some critics accused Carter and Hawley on being on an "ego trip".Alternate Link
In 1977, Carter retired. Hawley was appointed CEO.Alternate Link
The company continued to be an active acquirer, in 1972 acquiring

Bergdorf Goodman Bergdorf Goodman Inc. is an American luxury department store based in New York City, founded in 1899 by Herman Bergdorf. , it operates a women's store and a men's store across the street from each other on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. ...

in New York,Alternate Link
Alternate Link
via

ProQuest ProQuest LLC is an Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan-based global information-content and technology company, founded in 1938 as University Microfilms by Eugene Power. ProQuest is known for its applications and information services for l ...

. and

Holt Renfrew Holt, Renfrew & Co., Limited (Trade name, doing business as Holt Renfrew and Colloquialism, colloquially Holt's) is a Economy of Canada, Canadian luxury department store chain founded in 1837 by William S. Henderson. The original William Ashton ...

of Montreal, Canada.Alternate Link
After attempting an ill-fated, unsuccessful hostile takeover of

Marshall Field Marshall Field (August 18, 1834January 16, 1906) was an American entrepreneur and the founder of Marshall Field's, Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores. His business was renowned for its then-exceptional level of qua ...

in 1977,Alternate Link
via

.Alternate Link
Alternate Link
via

.Alternate Link
the company acquired the venerable but tattered John Wanamaker's of Philadelphia for $60 million (cash) in April 1978.Alternate Link
Alternate Link
That was followed by a stock swap for

Thalhimers Thalhimers was a department store chain in the Southern United States. Based in Richmond, Virginia, the chain at its peak operated dozens of stores in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and one store in Memphis, Tennessee. Thalhimer's tr ...

Richmond, Virginia Richmond ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. Incorporated in 1742, Richmond has been an independent city (United States), independent city since 1871. ...

in August 1978.Alternate Link
. Contempo Casuals was a May 1979, takeover.Alternate Link
Emporium and Capwell's were merged to form a unified San Francisco Bay-area presence as Emporium-Capwell in 1980,Link
via

.Alternate Link
Weinstock's moved into Utah and

Reno, Nevada Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada–California border. It is the county seat and most populous city of Washoe County, Nevada, Washoe County. Sitting in the High Eastern Sierra foothills, ...

, 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 Wall Street is a street in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs eight city blocks between Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the west and South Street (Manhattan), South Str ...

was "God gave them Southern California, and they blew it", which ''The Wall Street Journal'' had attributed to Monroe H. Greenstein, a retailing analyst at

Bear Stearns The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. was an American investment bank, securities trading, and brokerage firm that failed in 2008 during the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession. After its closure it was subsequently sold to JPMorgan Chas ...

. In 1980, CHH decided to get rid of units which catered to the lower economic markets. The first to go was the Sunset House mail order unit which also operated novelty shops in shopping malls.Alternate Link
Alternate Link
via

. CHH found a buyer that only wanted the mail order unit and the mall stores were closed in 1981.Alternate Link
Faced with continuing poor results, and two hostile

takeover In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are publicly listed, in contrast to the acquisi ...

attempts by

The Limited The Limited is an American clothing brand sold exclusively through Belk. The Limited began with operating retail stores between the early 1960s and the late 2010s. In 2017, it became a brand owned by the private equity firm Sycamore Partners. Hi ...

in 1984 and 1986, the company, still led by Phillip M. Hawley, reacted by first selling Waldenbooks to

Kmart Kmart ( ), formerly legally registered as Kmart Corporation, now operated by Transformco, is a department-store chain and online retailer in the United States and Territories of the United States, its territories. It operates four remaining Kma ...

in 1984, Holt Renfrew to the Weston Family in April 1986, Wanamaker's to

A. Alfred Taubman Adolph Alfred "Al" Taubman (January 31, 1924 – April 17, 2015) was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. In 2002, he was convicted for a price-fixing scheme involving the top two auction houses in the United States. Early li ...

Woodward & Lothrop Woodward & Lothrop was a department store chain headquartered in Washington, D.C. that began as the capital's first department store in 1887. Woodies, as it was often nicknamed, maintained stores in the Mid-Atlantic states, Mid-Atlantic United St ...

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 General Cinema Corporation, also known as General Cinema, GCC, or General Cinema Theatres, was a chain of movie theaters in the United States. At its peak, the company operated about 1,500 screens, some of which were among the first theaters ce ...

(later renamed

Harcourt General Harcourt () was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. It was known at different stages in its history as Harcourt Brace, & Co. and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. From 1919 to 1 ...

), assumed majority ownership of Neiman-Marcus Group in 1986 as its reward. Thalhimer's was sold to

May Department Stores The May Department Stores Company was an American holding company of department stores founded in 1877 by David May. It operated several regional department stores throughout the United States, which were managed as distinct business divisions ...

in December 1990.

1990s and the end

From its heights in 1984 as the sixth-largest

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store under one roof, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store mad ...

chain firm in the United States, CHH fell into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1991. Besides the financial problems of surviving the 1980s era of hostile takeovers, the main California department store business had faltered because of increasing competition from

Nordstrom Nordstrom, Inc. () is an American Luxury goods, luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original store operated exclusively as a shoe store, and a seco ...

. In 1992, after one and one-half years of bankruptcy negotiations, financier

Sam Zell Samuel Zell (born Shmuel Zielonka; September 28, 1941 – May 18, 2023) was an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist primarily engaged in real estate investment. Companies founded by or controlled by Zell include Equity Residential ...

and his Zell/Chilmark Fund completed the reorganization of the newly renamed Broadway Stores, Inc., taking a 75 percent stake. The company finally emerged from bankruptcy in October 1992 and Hawley promptly announced his retirement. In early 1993, the three Utah-based Weinstock's stores were closed and the store leases were sold to

Mervyns Mervyn's was an American middle-scale department store chain based in Hayward, California, and founded by Mervin G. Morris (1920–2021). It carried national brands of clothing, footwear, bedding, bath products, furniture, jewelry, beauty product ...

Dillard's Dillard's, Inc. is an American department store chain with approximately 267 stores in 29 states and headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. Currently, the largest number of stores are located in Texas with 57 and Florida with 42. The company a ...

, and

ZCMI Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) was an American department store chain. It was founded in Salt Lake City, Utah, on October 9, 1868, by Brigham Young. For many years it used the slogan, "America's First Department Store." Histor ...

. After the takeover by Zell, Hawley was replaced as CEO by David Dworkin. Dworkin tried to slow the outward flow of cash from the company by remodeling stores and streamlining operations. In June 1994, the shareholders of ''Carter Hawley Hale Stores, Inc.'' voted to change the name of the company to Broadway Stores, Inc. to symbolize a change in the ailing company, but it was too late to make a difference. The final blow came on August 8, 1995, when the firm's lenders announced they would not advance the company any additional funds - which were needed to pay suppliers for new, as well as existing inventory. A week later, the firm announced its sale to

which effectively marked the beginning of the end to the remnant nameplates that the stores had operated under. The newly streamlined company was short-lived, however. In August 1995, Federated Department Stores agreed to acquire Broadway Stores. The acquisition was completed on October 12. The chain was dissolved in 1996 as Federated consolidated the former Broadway, Emporium and Weinstock's stores, along with its own Macy's California and

Bullock's Bullock's was a chain of full-line department stores from 1907 through 1995, headquartered in Los Angeles, growing to operate across California, Arizona and Nevada. Bullock's also operated as many as seven more upscale Bullocks Wilshire specialt ...

chains (acquired in 1994), to form

Macy's West Macy's Union Square is a department store building bounded by O'Farrell, Powell, Geary, and Stockton Streets in San Francisco, California, United States. The present-day building consists of several buildings that were built separately and lat ...

. Several duplicative units were sold to

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears ( ), is an American chain of department stores and online retailer founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosen ...

or shuttered, while Federated also used the real estate of five stores (Emporium-Capwell

Stanford Shopping Center Stanford Shopping Center is an upscale open air shopping mall located on Route 82 ( El Camino Real) at Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, California. It is on the campus of Stanford University although the university only owns the land and not th ...

, Broadway Sherman Oaks Fashion Square, Broadway Century City Shopping Center, Broadway Beverly Center, and Broadway Fashion Island Newport Beach) to finally bring its

Bloomingdale's Bloomingdale's Inc. is an American luxury department store chain founded in 1861 by Joseph Bloomingdale and Lyman Bloomingdale. It was acquired by Federated Department Stores in 1930, which purchased the Macy's department store chain in 1994, ...

chain to the West Coast. On September 28, 2006, Emporium-Capwell's Market Street flagship was redeveloped to house another Bloomingdale's location as well as an expansion of the adjoining shopping center

Westfield San Francisco Centre San Francisco Centre is a shopping mall located in San Francisco, California, United States. There are two vacant anchors, formerly occupied by Nordstrom and Bloomingdale's. The mall used to connect directly to the Powell Street station via an ...

. In addition, the one-time CHH Corporate Offices in the former

Superior Oil Company Building The Delphi Hotel
National Register of Historic Places is a 12-story hotel located ...

at 550 South Flower Street in Los Angeles, right next door to The California Club (of which Carter and Hawley were members), were converted into a three-star boutique hotel called "

The Standard The Standard may refer to: Entertainment * The Standard (band), an indie rock band from Portland, Oregon * ''The Standard'' (novel), a 1934 novel by the Austrian writer Alexander Lernet-Holenia * ''The Standard'' (Tommy Flanagan album), 1980 * ...

Selected divisions

Broadway

The Broadway division was the largest department store division within the company. The division could trace its roots to the Broadway Department Store that was founded in Los Angeles by Arthur Letts, Sr. in 1896. By 1992, the division expanded throughout Southern California and started expanded outside of California. In 1979, the division was split into the Phoenix-based Broadway Southwest to handle the out-of-state stores and the Los Angeles–based Broadway Southern California to handle the stores within California. The two separate divisions were consolidated in 1992 after many of the non-Californian stores were closed. At the time of its parent acquisition by Federated, Broadway had 52 stores.

Hale's

The chain's beginnings date from The Criterion store founded in

Sacramento, California Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat, seat of Sacramento County, California, Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento Rive ...

, in 1880 by the Hale Brothers, Prentis Cobb Hale I and Marshal Hale and adopted their name later the same year. By 1936, scion

Prentis Cobb Hale Prentis Cobb Hale Jr. (July 30, 1910 – February 16, 1996) was an American entrepreneur. The son of Prentis Cobb Hale I, who with two brothers, founded Hale Brothers & Co. Inc., in Sacramento, California in 1881. Prentis Hale Jr. earned a bac ...

worked as a stock clerk in the family store after he graduated from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. The company had expanded throughout Northern California, including a location at 989 Market Street in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

by 1902 (replaced in 1912 by a location at 901 Market Street). By 1949, the company had acquired its Sacramento-based rival Weinstock, Lubin & Co. Weinstock's was kept as a separate brand. Paradoxically, the Hale brand was later absorbed by the Weinstock's brand in Northern California.

Emporium-Capwell

Emporium-Capwell was created by the 1927 merger of the San Francisco–based Emporium Company and the Oakland-based H.C. Capwell Company.Link
via

.Alternate Link
This company kept the two brands separate and had opened many Emporium and Capwell stores respectively throughout the San Francisco Bay Area prior to its acquisition by Broadway-Hale in 1970. Under Carter Hawley Hale, there were 12 Emporiums and six Capwell stores when the two brands were merged to form the single Emporium-Capwell brand in 1980. There were 22 Emporium-Capwell stores left at the time of its parent's acquisition by Federated.

Weinstock's

Weinstock's could trace its origins to the Sacramento-based Weinstock, Lubin & Co. There were 8 Weinstock's store left at the time of its parent's acquisition by Federated.

ERISA case

Carter Hawley Hale also is known as a famous case study regarding its retirement plans. Because it offered its employees a profit-sharing plan, and not a retirement fund, under the Federal

Employee Retirement Income Security Act The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) (, codified in part at ) is a U.S. federal tax and labor law that establishes minimum standards for pension plans in private industry. It contains rules on the federal income tax e ...

(ERISA)

pension A pension (; ) is a fund into which amounts are paid regularly during an individual's working career, and from which periodic payments are made to support the person's retirement from work. A pension may be either a " defined benefit plan", wh ...

plan law, the trustee was under no obligation to diversify the fund. Because of the nondiversification and continued purchase of Carter Hawley Hale stock, the employee fund soon was stuck with a precipitous loss in value. Its employees' low morale contributed to its problems.

Advertising

The longtime print and television-radio media advertising slogans during the 1970s until The Broadway closed for good were "It's at the Broadway" (radio and television only) and "The Broadway ''is'' Southern California" (all media). A baritone male voice-over announcer provided the verbalized slogan.

References

{{reflist, 24em Defunct department stores based in Downtown Los Angeles History of Los Angeles Retail companies established in 1880 Retail companies disestablished in 1996 Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1991 1880 establishments in California 1996 disestablishments in California Defunct companies based in Greater Los Angeles Macy's, Inc. Defunct department store groups