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Dollar Tree CEO Gary Philbin announced the plans on Wednesday, which will include renovating some locations to sell alcohol and $1 Dollar Tree merchandise sections. As many as 400 stores will get expanded refrigeration sections and some Family Dollar discount stores will be rebranded to the Dollar Tree brand.
In total, the discount chain lost approximately $2.3 billion by the end of the fourth quarter.
“We are further accelerating store closings and expect to close as many as 390 underperforming stores,” Philbin said. And because of age, layout, location, unfavorable lease terms or other factors, are not expected to provide an adequate return on investment for the cost of renovation. The final number of actual stores closures will be affected by ongoing lease negotiations.”
The company reported that it opened 143 stores in the fourth quarter, closed 84 Family Dollar stores and 10 Dollar Tree stores. Fourteen others were expanded or relocated. The company now operates 15,237 locations in North America.
“Since the Family Dollar acquisition, we have taken the necessary actions to stabilize the business, capture synergies in both brands, rebuild the leadership team, introduce and develop the shared services infrastructure, integrate systems, create smart ways for our customers to save, improve on store standards, invest in labor and price and, importantly, to repay more than $4 billion worth of debt, earning our investment grade rating,” Philbin stated.
“We are now at the stage to be able to invest in and reposition the Family Dollar brand for future success through an acceleration of renovations, re-banners and store closings.”
This week’s announcement continues a trend of traditional brick-and-mortar stores closing their doors as it faces competition from online retailers. In recent months, Sears, K-Mart, GameStop and other name-brand stores being forced to shut down.
Philbin added, ”we are confident we are taking the appropriate steps to reposition our Family Dollar brand for increasing profitability as business initiatives gain traction in the back half of fiscal 2019.”
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