Macy's shuttering four locations

Macy’s will be closing a handful of locations.

The four on-mall stores affected by these closures are in Los Angeles, Fort Collins, Colorado, Oahu, Hawaii, and Gaithersburg, Maryland, a Macy’s spokesperson confirmed to FOX Business on Thursday.

The company reported operating just over 720 locations across its Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury brands at the end of the third quarter.

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"As part of our Polaris transformation strategy, we continue to optimize and reposition our store fleet to ensure we have the right mix of on-mall and off-mall stores to better serve our customers and effectively support omnichannel market sales growth," the Macy’s spokesperson told FOX Business.

The company will offer a "role in nearby locations or severance packages" to those who work at the closing stores, according to the spokesperson.

The news was first reported Wednesday by Axios, which said the four stores would permanently close in the first quarter.

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CFO Adrian Mitchell discussed store closures in Macy's earnings call with analysts and investors almost two months ago. 

"We have been aggressive about rightsizing our store base, and we'll continue to prioritize asset monetization," he said at the time. "However, we continue to see the importance of main locations within the best malls, particularly as we build out our omnichannel ecosystem. We expect to announce less than 10 store closures in January, consistent with our decision to delay the closure of our full-line store base that we communicated last year."

The company unveiled its "Polaris" strategy in February 2020, including plans to shutter about 125 stores in a three-year time span, trim its number of offices and explore new off-mall formats.

"We continue to meet our customers however they choose to shop, through a combination of physical stores in the best malls, off-mall smaller-format and off-price stores, and a best-in-class digital shopping experience," the company spokesperson also said Thursday.

Macy’s launched several smaller-format Market by Macy’s shops last year, in addition to adding to its Macy’s Backstage footprint. Another Bloomie’s is coming in 2023, as well.

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The retailer generated $5.23 billion in net sales in the third quarter, a 3.9% decrease from the same three-month period last year when it reported $5.44 billion. Its net income went from $239 million to $108 million.

Macy's shares were up about 0.9% at the time of publication. The company's stock price has dropped over 19% in the past year.