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Express files for bankruptcy, plans to close nearly 100 stores
Express has filed for bankruptcy and plans to close nearly 100 of its 500 retail locations, the Columbus, Ohio-based clothing retailer said on Monday.
A source of modestly priced outfits for more than 40 years, closing sales begin on Tuesday at around 95 of the company stores, including all of its UpWest locations, Express said in a statement.
The company operates some 530 Express retail and Express Factory Outlet stores in the U.S. and a dozen UpWest stores, according to its website.
Revenue at Express has cratered in recent years, with the company’s latest results showing sales down nearly 10% from the same period in 2019, noted Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData.
The company’s woes are not entirely of its own making, according to Saunders. “The formal and smart casual market for both men and women has softened over recent years because of a rise from working from home and the casualization of fashion. This puts Express firmly on the wrong side of trends and, in our view, the chain made too little effort to adapt,” he stated.
Still, poor decisions worsened its problems, said Saunders, who cited the fashion retailer’s choice of “someone from the meat industry as CEO” as among them. Express in September appointed former Tyson Foods executive Stewart Glendinning to lead the company.
Express plans to use the Chapter 11 process to facilitate a sale of the company’s operations and most of its stores to brand manager WHP Global and mall landlords Simon Property Group and Brookfield Properties.
New York-based WHP Global’s portfolio includes Toys “R” Us, Isaac Mizrahi and Rag & Bone. It owns 60% of the Express brand via a joint venture formed last year.
Express is working with A&G Realty Partners in an ongoing review of its store footprint, it said.
The company’s bankruptcy follows the same step earlier this month by 99 Cents Only Stores and hobby chain Joann in March.
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McDonald’s investing $100 million to lure customers back to the fast food giant after E. coli outbreak
McDonald’s is investing $100 million to bring customers back to stores after an outbreak of E. coli food poisoning tied to onions on the fast-food giant’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers.
The investments include $65 million that will go directly to the hardest-hit franchises, the company said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that slivered onions on the Quarter Pounders were the likely source of the E. coli. Taylor Farms in California recalled onions potentially linked to the outbreak.
The E. coli outbreak has sickened 104 people in 14 states, federal health officials said in an update on Wednesday.
At least 34 people have been hospitalized, and four developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious condition that can cause kidney failure. An 88-year-old man who resided in Grand Junction, Colorado, died, as previously reported. The illnesses began at the end of September, and the most recent onset of illness occurred as of Oct. 21, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The Food and Drug Administration has said that “there does not appear to be a continued food safety concern related to this outbreak at McDonald’s restaurants.”
However, the outbreak hurt the company’s sales.
Quarter Pounders were removed from menus in several states in the early days of the outbreak.
In a statement Wednesday obtained by CBS News, McDonald’s said it had found an “alternate supplier” for the approximately 900 restaurants that had temporarily stopped serving Quarter Pounders with slivered onions.
“Over the past week, these restaurants resumed the sale of Quarter Pounder burgers with slivered onions,” McDonald’s said.
CBS News reached out to McDonald’s on Saturday for a statement regarding the reported investment.
Health officials said Saturday they have confirmed the first U.S. case of a new form of mpox that was first seen in eastern Congo.
The person had traveled to eastern Africa and was treated in Northern California upon return, according to the California Department of Public Health. Symptoms are improving and the risk to the public is low.
Mpox is a rare disease caused by infection with a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox. It is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals.
Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of mpox in Africa that was spread through close contact including through sex.
More than 3,100 confirmed cases have been reported just since late September, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of them have been in three African countries – Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since then, cases of travelers with the new mpox form have been reported in Germany, India, Kenya, Sweden, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and the United Kingdom.
Health officials earlier this month said the situation in Congo appears to be stabilizing. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated Congo needs at least 3 million mpox vaccines to stop the spread, and another 7 million vaccines for the rest of Africa.
The current outbreak is different from the 2022 global outbreak of mpox where gay and bisexual men made up the vast majority of cases.
