J.C. Penney Co. plans to close as many as 140 stores and trim about 6,000 jobs through early retirement, becoming the latest department-store chain making a bold move to adjust to a world of lower mall traffic and fierce online competition.<\/p>\n
The closings represent as much as 14 percent of company’s store base and less than 5 percent of total sales, Plano, Texas-based J.C. Penney said Friday. The moves, which also include shutting two distribution centers, will save about $200 million a year.<\/p>\n
J.C. Penney’s plan echoes rival Macy’s Inc.’s announcement last year that it would shut about 100 of its stores to adjust to a world where consumers increasingly prefer shopping online to visiting malls. Sales at J.C. Penney, which is still working to recover from a disastrous attempted reinvention, are less than half of their 2002 peak.<\/p>\n
The shares rose 1.5 percent to $6.96 at 7:18 a.m. in early trading in New York. J.C. Penney had been down 17 percent this year through yesterday’s close.<\/p>\n
(c) 2017, Bloomberg \u00b7 Lindsey Rupp<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" J.C. Penney Co. plans to close as many as 140 stores and trim about 6,000 jobs through early retirement, becoming the latest department-store chain making a bold move to adjust to a world of lower mall traffic and fierce online competition. The closings represent as much as 14 percent of company’s store base and less […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3507,"featured_media":100265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n