| Type | Public (OTCBB: BLKIA) (OTCBB: BLKIB) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail |
| Founded | 1888 (Monroe, North Carolina, USA) |
| Headquarters | Charlotte, North Carolina, USA |
| Number of locations | 305 (January 2011)[1] |
| Products | Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, and housewares. |
| Website | www.belk.com |
Belk is a department store chain founded in 1888 in Monroe, North Carolina, today part of the Charlotte metropolitan area. After the founding of the first Belk store, the company grew in size and influence throughout the South via the chain in the USA,[2] with its stores primarily located in the Southern USA.
The chain has four flagship locations:
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Founded in 1888 by William Henry Belk, the store was first called "New York Racket" and then "Belk Brothers," after Belk made his brother, Dr. John Belk, a physician, his partner.
By 1908, the company had moved its headquarters to Charlotte and built a giant flagship store on Trade and Tryon Streets in downtown Charlotte. That store was closed in 1988 to make way for what is now Bank of America Corporate Center and the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center.
The business grew steadily, relying on "bargain sales" and advertising to grow the business.
Today, the chain is still family-operated (though it is publicly-traded on the OTCBB market having both Class A and Class B common stock shares, according to a 2011 SEC proxy filing over 90 percent of the Class A stock is held by Belk family interests[3]) and currently has 306 stores in 19 states, particularly in the Carolinas,[4] along with the Atlanta and Birmingham metro areas. The Atlanta area now has the largest concentration of Belk stores in any of its markets. The westernmost Belk stores are located in Waco, Texas and Stillwater, Oklahoma; while the northermost Belk is located in Westminster, Maryland and the southernmost Belk store is in Fort Myers, Florida. In 2006, Belk generated US$2.97 billion in sales and employed 17,900 people.
During the fourth quarter of 2005, Belk completed the sale of their private label credit card division, Belk National Bank, to GE MoneyBank. Consumers were issued new Belk credit cards replacing the old ones issued by BNB. All new Belk cards are now issued by GE Money Bank.[4]
On July 5, 2005, Belk completed the purchase of 47 Proffitt's and McRae's department stores from Saks Incorporated. Belk converted the 39 Proffitt's and McRae's stores to the Belk nameplate on March 8, 2006.[5] Just over a year later, Belk purchased 38 Parisian department stores from Saks on October 2, 2006. Although most Parisian stores were converted to the Belk nameplate since September 12, 2007, some Parisian stores were closed in cases of duplicate stores in developments, such as the Parisian locations at The Mall at Barnes Crossing in Tupelo, Mississippi, Richland Mall in Columbia, South Carolina, and at Citadel Mall in Charleston, South Carolina. Four stores in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio, plus a store under construction at the time in Michigan, were sold by Belk to The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. Belk additionally traded its newly acquired Parisian location in Collierville, Tennessee, with Macy's, Inc. for a Macy's (former Hecht's) in Wilmington, North Carolina, during the second quarter of 2007.[6][7]
Belk also now operates a store in the popular Branson Landing district in Branson, Missouri.[8]
Even as Belk has made its recent acquisitions, the chain has operated limited electronic commerce on its website, and those websites acquired and redirected to Belk.com. Home furnishings such as bedding, small kitchen appliances, crystal, dinnerware, and china have been offered for several years to online shoppers, as a part of the chain's online bridal and gift registry. The chain revamped their website and registry on September 15, 2008. Celebrity-branded product lines are another pursuit, including a partnership with actress Kristin Davis for a ladies' apparel and accessories collection which debuted in fall 2008 in 125 store locations and online. However, that product line was discontinued in late 2009. [9]
On October 3, 2010, the News & Observer reported Belk planned to update its logo.[10] On October 12 at SouthPark Mall, Belk officially introduced the new logo, the first since 1967. The chain plans a $70 million marketing campaign that includes the slogan "Modern. Southern. Style." Sixty stores will get new signs in the first phase, and the remainder will get new signs in 2011.[11] Advertisements for Belk & Co. jewelry continue to use a variation of the old logo.
In December 2010 Belk announced that beginning in 2011 it would become the title sponsor for the former Meineke Car Care Bowl (played in Charlotte), now renamed the Belk Bowl. The sponsorship would continue for three years.[12]
Beginning in 1921 with the Leggett Bros. stores of South Boston, Virginia, the Belk family formed various partnerships with other merchandisers in different markets. (This complex story is chronicled in a book[13] about the evolution of the company.)
This unusual corporate ownership structure resulted in dual or hyphened names on many of their stores (and resulted in over 300 separate legal entities, each store having differing ownership interests), which in the 1990's threatened the company's very existence, as a combination of Belk family squabbles (one side wanting to keep the structure, while the other side saw it to be a hindrance in the modern retail era) and a wave of retail industry consolidation resulted in several partnerships (where Belk did not hold controlling interest) selling their interests to competitors (for example, the heirs of John G. Parks, majority owners of the Parks-Belk chain, sold their interests to Proffitt's; the Belks would quickly follow suit, though Belk would later purchase the Proffitt's chain).
Eventually John and Tom Belk would gain control of the company, just in time to salvage the company when the Belk-Leggett partnership was threatened (the chain comprising about 20 percent of the overall company's revenue; the Leggetts themselves were involved in their own family squabbles, and once again competitor Proffitt's had made an offer) did two of the family members (John and Tom Belk) take action by forming a new company in 1996 to purchase the Leggett interests.
In 1998, the company formed a new entity (Belk, Inc.) from its 112 existing Belk companies, and over time eliminated the dual-naming convention in favor of the Belk name (however, certain well-established partnership names, such as Hudson Belk in the Triangle region of North Carolina, remained in place until Belk's logo change in the fall of 2010).