Macy’s Inc. CEO takes center stage at NRF 2025
Activist investors may want Macy’s Inc. to consider spinning off its higher performing Bloomindale’s and Blue Mercury banners, but the CEO of the company is not keen on the idea.
“We continue to believe there are synergies that are leveraged between the three brands, between warehousing, legal, finance, back-end operations, joint brand negotiation,” said Tony Spring, CEO of Macy’s Inc., during a panel presentation at NRF 2025: Retail’s Big Show convention in New York City. “There's just so much opportunity for us to kind of leverage the scale of the portfolio.”
Spring gave Big Show attendees an update on Macy’s “Bold New Chapter” turnaround strategy, which is designed to return the company to sustainable profitable growth.
“The Bold New Chapter is our opportunity to reimagine the Macy’s Inc. portfolio,” Spring said.
The strategy includes closing approximately 150 underproductive namesake locations over three years and prioritizing investment in the store experience in approximately 350 “go-forward” nameplate locations. It also calls for the opening of about 15 Bloomingdale’s stores and at least 30 Bluemercury stores during the next three years
“I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made,” he said. “We’re beginning to see green shoots with regard to Macy’s.”
In a sign that the strategy is working of the strategy’s success, Spring pointed out comparable sales growth at the first 50 Macy’s stores that have received improvements.
“We’ve seen three consecutive quarters of improvement in our net promoter scores, in addition to consecutive quarters of comp store sales growth,” he said.
Spring noted that, that going into 2025, the company is more informed and more educated, and “better prepared to return Macy’s Inc. to sustainable profitable growth.”
With regards to the company’s portfolio, Spring said Macy’s needs to make sure that the three brand remain distinguished from one another, and make sure that [none] of these brands, becomes one another.
“The key is for the customer to find something special, something different at Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury, and at the same time for us to continue to try to make the case to the public markets that this three-brand portfolio has more value than we are showing today,” he said.
The executive dismissed the notion that department stores are a tired or outdated format.
“The death knell for the department store has been going on since I was a child,” he said. “The key to remember is the department store, essentially, is the curation of choice.” We all love choice, and I think the department store is well positioned to offer that.”
Department stores also have flexibility in their business to respond quickly to consumer trends because of the wide variety of products they sell, Spring added.
He was joined on the panel Olivier Bron, CEO of Bloomingdale’s, and Maly Bernstein, CEO of Bluemercury, which has had 15 consecutive quarters of comp store sales growth.
“In a world where tech continues to grow, we’re prioritizing the human,” Bernstein said. “We are reinforcing the connection, and we’re using tech to further the relationship.”