Dillard's

This article is about a department store chain. For The Dillards, a progressive bluegrass band, see The Dillards.

Dillard's (NYSE: [DDS]) is a major/upscale department store chain in the United States, with 329 stores in 29 states as of 2005. Its locations are concentrated in the South, particularly Texas, Louisiana, and Florida. It competes on a price level with Belk, Macy's, and J.C. Penney, but below Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Nordstrom.

Contents

1 History
2 Acquisitions
3 Locations
4 External links

History

It is the outgrowth of a Nashville, Arkansas department store founded in 1938 by William T. Dillard; its corporate headquarters remain located in Little Rock and many of its executives and directors are members of the Dillard family.

Dillard sold the Nashville store to develop a larger one in Texarkana, Arkansas in 1948, and opened a second store in Tyler, Texas in 1956. Thereafter the chain grew rapidly as an anchor in suburban shopping malls, and took advantage of market conditions to acquire smaller chains as well as its ability to turnaround locations that other companies could not operate profitably.

The chain continues to expand, and has recently begun adding stores in nontraditional shopping centers: its largest store at 350,000 square feet (33,000 m²) is located at Scottsdale Fashion Square in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Dillard's store credit cards are issued by GE Money Bank. The cards were orginally issued by Dillard National Bank which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Dillard's before being sold to GE Money Bank.

Dillard's now offer Dillard's American Express cards. These cards can be used at any store that accepts American Express.

Discrimination complaints and lawsuits have plagued Dillard's for years, as minority women and men accuse the company of complacency and even systematic endorsement of racial profiling toward customers.

Acquisitions

The exterior of a typical Dillard's department store at the International Plaza and Bay Street in Tampa.

The 1980s brought the purchase of many smaller local chains. In 1984, Dillard’s acquired Stix, Baer & Fuller's 12 stores in St. Louis and Kansas City from Associated Dry Goods Corp. Two department store divisions were also purchased from Dayton Hudson in 1984: Diamonds and John A. Brown, with locations in Arizona, Nevada and Oklahoma. Twelve of R. H. Macy Co.'s stores in Kansas and Missouri were bought in 1986. In 1987, Dillard's purchased the 27-store Joske's chain with stores in Texas and Arizona as well as three units of the Cain-Sloan chain in Nashville, Tennessee from Allied Stores Corp. This deal gave Dillard's two anchor locations at several malls in Texas and Arizona with many of the second locations being converted to a home and men's store. This purchase marked Dillard's entry into the Houston market. 1988 brought a 50% interest in the Ohio chain of Higbee Department Stores with partner Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. (the remainder was acquired from DeBartolo in 1992). The D.H. Holmes company was purchased in 1989, bringing 18 units in the South to the Dillard fold.

The two J.B. Ivey chains of 23 stores in Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina were added in 1990. This was followed by the acquisition of 8 Florida Gulf Coast stores from Maison Blanche Co. in 1991 (which had acquired them as Robinsons of Florida only a few years before). 5 Ohio stores from the Joseph Horne Co. came in 1992 (to complement Dillard's full ownership of Higbee's). 1992 also brought 3 stores initially from the Hess's chain liquidation (several other Hess's locations were taken over after negotiations with landlords) and 2 Scarborough's locations in Austin, Texas. The first three 3 months of 1997 saw the acquisition of 10 units in Florida from Mervyn's, eight southern Virginia stores (at 7 locations) from Proffitt's (which had acquired them from Hess's in 1993), and 3 Macy's units in Houston, Texas.

The deal-making culminated with its purchase of Mercantile Stores Co., Inc. in 1998. This brought several chains, including Bacon's, Castner-Knott, de Lendrecie's, Gayfers, Glass Block, Hennessy's, J.B. White, Joslin's, Lion, Maison Blanche, McAlpin's, Root's and The Jones Store. Dillard's sold or swapped approximately one third of Mercantile Stores with Belk, Inc., May Department Stores Co. and Saks, Inc., enabling to enhance its position in several markets in the South, Midwest and Mountain States.

Since then Dillard's has eschewed acquisitions (except for 8 locations of the defunct Montgomery Ward in 2001 and 4 locations from ZCMI in Utah and Idaho) and focused on enhancing their existing markets and selectively entering new ones.

Locations

Dillard's operates locations in 29 states in the United States.

External links

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