Aéropostale, Inc. (occasionally known as AERO) is an American shopping mall-based specialty retailer of casual apparel and accessories, principally targeting ages 14-to-17-year-old men and women through its Aéropostale stores although adults 18 and up wear the clothing as well and 4-to-12-year-old children through its P.S. from Aéropostale stores. Aéropostale maintains control over its proprietary brands by designing, sourcing, marketing and selling all of its own merchandise. The company operates 773 Aéropostale stores in the U.S. (spanning all 50 states and Puerto Rico) and about 61 stores in Canada. P.S. from Aéropostale operates 26 stores in 12 U.S. states. Aéropostale's licensees operate 239 Aéropostale and P.S. from Aéropostale locations in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. The first Aéropostale store was opened in 1987 by Macy's in the Westside Pavilion Mall in Los Angeles, CA. The company has grown from 119 stores in 1999 to the current 860.
After thirteen consecutive quarters of losses, Aéropostale filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on May 4, 2016, with assets of $354 million. The company will close 113 of its 739 U.S. stores and all 41 (in addition to 20 already closed prior to the filing) in Canada, the majority of which were unprofitable and responsible for the company's losses. USA Today made a list of all of the US stores closing as part of its bankruptcy.
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Subsidiaries
To leverage the strength of the Aéropostale teen brand, the company has expanded its namesake chain to a new chain called "P.S. from Aéropostale", geared at children. P.S., from Aéropostale, began in 2009, and originally only offered apparel at value prices to the 7-12 age market. In winter of 2011, P.S. added apparel for three-, four-, five- and six-year-olds to their collections, being introduced with the Holiday clothings. Beginning in November 2013, the Bethany Mota collection was added to Aéropostale stores, featuring clothing and accessories designed by American video blogger Bethany Mota. Also beginning in the fall of 2013, the Live Love Dream collection (LLD) was added to Aéropostale stores. Live Love Dream features lounge and activewear geared to girls. The company also offered a secondary brand called Jimmy'Z that focused on surf and skater clothing. The 14 stores were branded as more upscale with higher price points than its parent chain. The company closed all Jimmy'Z in fiscal 2009. In October 2014, the company launched their latest collection, United XXVI, which features clothing with an edgier look. The company works with video bloggers Nash Grier, Hayes Grier, and Cameron Dallas to create these looks based on the type of clothing the boys enjoy.
Aéropostale has currently following brands for girls:
- Bethany Mota
- Free State
- Hobie
- Invite Only
- Junie & Jade
- Live Love Dream
- Lorimer
- Map to Mars
- The Bikini Lab
- Tokyo Darling
- United XXVI
And for boys:
- Brooklyn Calling
- Free State
- United XXVI
Competition
Aéropostale mainly competes with other outfitters, Abercrombie & Fitch and its subsidiary retailer Hollister Co., and American Eagle Outfitters as well as a few smaller brands. Aéropostale's younger brand, P.S. from Aéropostale, competes with brands such as A&F's younger subsidiary Abercrombie kids and American Eagle's 77kids.
Promotions
In 2007, the company began doing promotions with successful figures to increase brand awareness. The first promotion was selling the Fall Out Boy album Infinity on High with a store-exclusive T-shirt. Other offers include a free beach towel with every $50 purchase and a free Christmas bear with a purchase of over $100, each promotion in its respective season. These Christmas bears are also donated by Aéropostale stores to local charities in their respective communities. In 2008, Aéropostale, along with not-for-profit youth organization Do Something, launched "Teens for Jeans", a campaign to raise awareness of teen homelessness. Stores would collect lightly used jeans and donate them to local charities. In return, donators received a 20% (2008) or 25% (2009) discount on a new pair of Aéropostale jeans. In 2008, the campaign raised over 125,000 pairs of jeans. In their fifth year they collected over a million pairs in 2012. In 2008 and 2009, Aéropostale donated 10,000 pairs of new jeans to the campaign.
In 2010, after the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, for every pair of jeans that was donated by customers, Aéropostale sent a brand new pair to Haiti. In 2015, the company teamed up with British pop band The Vamps to promote awareness. The school with the most jeans collected received a private concert from the band. There were over 82,000 participants and the company raised 722,072 pairs of jeans in total. Also they promoted the show Greek Season 1 DVD with a free T-shirt with a $50 purchase. In the same year, Aéropostale organized Real Teen contest to discover new talent among teenagers. The top 8 winners of the contest received $5,000 personal college scholarship. In April 2011, Aéropostale partnered with Black Eyed Peas to sell exclusive T-shirts and CDs. Proceeds from these items benefit the Peapod Foundation, a charity which "helps children worldwide through music." Additionally, Aéropostale has pledged $100,000 to the organization.
Aéropostale not only helps out their customers, they also help their employees through a program called Aero Cares. Aero Cares is another not-for-profit organization and is funded voluntarily by the Aéropostale employees. The purpose of the organization is to help any employee during times of extreme financial hardship or need resulting from personal tragedy.
Awards and honors
The company was named by Fortune magazine as one of the top 100 companies to work for in 2013.
Legal issues
- In March 2007, Aéropostale was accused of infringing a patent owned by Card Activation Technologies, Inc. in a lawsuit filed in the Northern District of Illinois. Anyhow, in a separate lawsuit on the same patent, Card Activation received a ruling on claim construction which it interpreted as "extremely favorable" to its interpretation of the patent and its "pursuit of infringers" of the patent.
- In June 2007, Aéropostale was accused of infringing a patent owned by Picture Patents, LLC in a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York.
- In July 2009, Aéropostale was accused of infringing a patent owned by Furnace Brook, LLC in a lawsuit filed in the Northern District of Illinois.
- Executive Vice President and Chief Merchandising Officer Christopher Finazzo was terminated in November 2006 after an investigation by the Board of Directors revealed that he had concealed and failed to disclose personal and business interests with South Bay Apparel, a major vendor. The SEC issued an investigation on the Finazzo matter in January 2008. A criminal indictment was unsealed and announced June 11, 2010 in U.S. Court in Brooklyn, NY charging Finazzo and Doug Dey, the owner of South Bay with wire and mail fraud conspiracy. Finazzo was convicted on 16 counts, including 14 counts of mail fraud and one each for wire fraud and conspiracy on April 25, 2013.
NYSE Delisting
On April 22, 2016, the company was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, and began trading under the symbol AROP as an over-the-counter stock starting on April 22, 2016.
On March 17, 2017, Aeropostale announced its looking for strategic alternative either to sell it off or restructure.
Bankruptcy preparation
As of May 2, 2016, the company was preparing for a bankruptcy filing - with more than 100 of its 800 stores to be closed.
On May 4, 2016, the company filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. As part of the reorganization, the company will close 113 U.S. stores and all 41 Canadian stores. In August 2016, mall operators General Growth Properties and Simon Property Group, along with Authentic Brands Group, Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Retail Partners, put in a bid for all of Aeropostale's assets consisting of at least 229 stores. The bid in total is $243 million. The joint venture will seek to assume all liabilities as well. The bid will help the REITs save their existing leases with the company. General Growth Properties and Simon Property Group have a total of 234 leases with Aeropostale. As of the date of bankruptcy filing, Aeropostale had a total of 739 stores in operation in the United States and Puerto Rico - and further 41 stores in Canada. The company had 25 P.S. from Aeropostale stores in 12 states.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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