WOOLWORTH TO SPEED UP CHANGES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 9, 1992                   TAG: 9201090357
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: C5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
WOOLWORTH TO SPEED UP CHANGES
Woolworth Corp. announced Wednesday that it will accelerate a plan to reformat, close or sell some 900 of its 6,500 specialty and general merchandise stores in the United States.
The New York-based company operates units of its Woolworth and Kinney shoe chains in Western Virginia, but a spokesman said no list of stores to be converted or closed was available Wednesday.
The redeployment plan includes discontinuing 207 Susie's/Sportelle women's apparel boutiques, 268 stores and three manufacturing plants of Richman Brothers/Anderson-Little men's and women's apparel shops and trimming five other retail formats.
The company's Kids Mart/Little Folk Shops infants' and children's apparel stores will be trimmed by 15 percent, Kinney family shoe stores by 25 percent and Woolworth/Worth Express stores by 8 percent.
Woolworth Corp. also owns Foot Locker, Lady Foot Locker, Kids Foot Locker, Afterthoughts/Carimar boutiques, Champs, Athletic X-Press, Williams the Shoeman, Mathers and Woolco stores.
Some of the divisions being trimmed or converted could be changed into other Woolworth operations. The spokesman said a non-profitable Kinney could be converted into a Foot Locker, for instance.
The company also announced plans for $400 million in capital expenditures beginning Jan. 26, mainly to open about 850 stores worldwide. The amount also includes expenditures for stores to be opened in space freed up by the closing of underperforming outlets.
About 4,700 full-time and 5,300 part-time workers will be affected by the accelerated redeployment program, a spokesman said. The company employs some 38,000 full-time and 32,000 part-time workers in the United States.
For the 39 weeks ended Oct. 26, the stores targeted as part of the program incurred an operating loss of about $50 million, accounting for about $342 million of the total $3.9 billion in revenues for all U.S. stores. The U.S. stores had total operating profit of $168 million in that period, Woolworth reported.
In another action, Woolworth on Wednesday declared a quarterly common stock dividend of 27 cents per share, payable March 1 to shareholders on Feb. 3.
Wire services also contributed to this story.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB