KMart to leave Troy, MI in a year, move to Chicago
03-09-2005, 11:37 AM
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KMart to leave Troy, MI in a year, move to Chicago
Kmart to leave Troy in year
Employees will also know fate soon
March 5, 2005
BY GRETA GUEST and JOHN GALLAGHER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITERS
Kmart Holding Corp. told employees this week it will leave its Troy headquarters within a year, and that workers would know within 30 to 60 days whether they'll be moved to the new headquarters in suburban Chicago or another office in southeast Michigan or be laid off.
An employee who attended the meetings on Monday and Tuesday and requested anonymity told the Free Press on Friday that marketing, merchandising and store operations will remain in the Detroit area because of long-standing vendor relationships. The company is still looking for a new home for those departments, the employee said.
Aylwin Lewis, Kmart's CEO and president, gave few other details during the meetings about how many of the 1,800 headquarters employees would have jobs after the $11-billion merger with Sears Roebuck and Co.
The merger of two icons of American retailing will create a $55-billion retailer with 3,500 stores.
The merger is expected to close after a shareholder vote March 24. Employees were allowed to ask questions during the 20-minute meetings, but the answers were light on specifics or numbers, the employee said.
Stephen Pagnani, a Kmart spokesman, confirmed Friday that meetings with employees occurred Monday and Tuesday, but declined to discuss their substance.
While sketchy, the assurances could stand as good news for a region that feared losing all of Kmart's corporate operations to Illinois.
Under terms of that deal, engineered by financier Edward Lambert, a combined entity called Sears Holdings Corp. will be headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Ill., outside Chicago, the site of Sears' headquarters.
The company said in November when the merger was announced that it expected to leave a significant presence in Michigan, but local retail experts remained skeptical.
"If you read the analyst reports, sure this is a nice merger for the near future," the employee said. "What is Eddie doing? Is he doing this for investment purposes? To uproot and move is a scary prospect when you don't know the future."
Besides the three departments that were expected to stay in the area, the employee noted that people who work in pantry, pharmacy and health and beauty departments would likely be spared the ax because Sears does not now operate those departments in the majority of its stores.
According to the employee, workers were also told:
•Kmart would consider letting Troy employees it wants to transfer continue living in Michigan and commute to Chicago to work on a part-time basis there.
•Employees who are transferring would be offered relocation packages.
•Employees who are terminated or refuse a transfer would receive severance packages.
•Sears headquarters employees, percentage-wise, would be laid off in greater numbers because the retailer has a larger staff there. Kmart's headquarters employees have been pared significantly. Once 5,000 strong, the Troy building now houses fewer than 2,000 workers.
•Managers reassured employees that Kmart would continue to operate as a separate retailer from Sears and talked about how to improve the discount retailer's image.
The employee said the company didn't answer questions about how many Kmart stores would survive, what would happen to the headquarters building or how many employees would lose their jobs.
Gary Ruffing, a former Kmart executive who now works as a retail consultant with Southfield-based turnaround firm BBK Ltd., said he wasn't surprised to hear that Kmart will maintain corporate operations here for up to a year.
"After they've done some due diligence, they're finding pulling this thing together may be tougher than they thought it would be," he said.
Kmart has long said it needs to move out of its Troy headquarters.
Before the merger, the discount retailer had been planning to move its headquarters to a smaller building in Michigan, or even Atlanta.
Real estate development experts say they expect that in the long term, some or all of the Kmart site in Troy probably will be redeveloped as a mixed-use project including a hotel, retail and residential.
The Big Beaver Road site has an assessed value of $12 million, but would likely sell for more given its close proximity to Somerset Collection, the state's premier shopping mall.
Kmart began as S.S. Kresge Co. on Woodward Avenue in Detroit in 1899. The company moved its headquarters to Troy in 1972.
Employees will also know fate soon
March 5, 2005
BY GRETA GUEST and JOHN GALLAGHER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITERS
Kmart Holding Corp. told employees this week it will leave its Troy headquarters within a year, and that workers would know within 30 to 60 days whether they'll be moved to the new headquarters in suburban Chicago or another office in southeast Michigan or be laid off.
An employee who attended the meetings on Monday and Tuesday and requested anonymity told the Free Press on Friday that marketing, merchandising and store operations will remain in the Detroit area because of long-standing vendor relationships. The company is still looking for a new home for those departments, the employee said.
Aylwin Lewis, Kmart's CEO and president, gave few other details during the meetings about how many of the 1,800 headquarters employees would have jobs after the $11-billion merger with Sears Roebuck and Co.
The merger of two icons of American retailing will create a $55-billion retailer with 3,500 stores.
The merger is expected to close after a shareholder vote March 24. Employees were allowed to ask questions during the 20-minute meetings, but the answers were light on specifics or numbers, the employee said.
Stephen Pagnani, a Kmart spokesman, confirmed Friday that meetings with employees occurred Monday and Tuesday, but declined to discuss their substance.
While sketchy, the assurances could stand as good news for a region that feared losing all of Kmart's corporate operations to Illinois.
Under terms of that deal, engineered by financier Edward Lambert, a combined entity called Sears Holdings Corp. will be headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Ill., outside Chicago, the site of Sears' headquarters.
The company said in November when the merger was announced that it expected to leave a significant presence in Michigan, but local retail experts remained skeptical.
"If you read the analyst reports, sure this is a nice merger for the near future," the employee said. "What is Eddie doing? Is he doing this for investment purposes? To uproot and move is a scary prospect when you don't know the future."
Besides the three departments that were expected to stay in the area, the employee noted that people who work in pantry, pharmacy and health and beauty departments would likely be spared the ax because Sears does not now operate those departments in the majority of its stores.
According to the employee, workers were also told:
•Kmart would consider letting Troy employees it wants to transfer continue living in Michigan and commute to Chicago to work on a part-time basis there.
•Employees who are transferring would be offered relocation packages.
•Employees who are terminated or refuse a transfer would receive severance packages.
•Sears headquarters employees, percentage-wise, would be laid off in greater numbers because the retailer has a larger staff there. Kmart's headquarters employees have been pared significantly. Once 5,000 strong, the Troy building now houses fewer than 2,000 workers.
•Managers reassured employees that Kmart would continue to operate as a separate retailer from Sears and talked about how to improve the discount retailer's image.
The employee said the company didn't answer questions about how many Kmart stores would survive, what would happen to the headquarters building or how many employees would lose their jobs.
Gary Ruffing, a former Kmart executive who now works as a retail consultant with Southfield-based turnaround firm BBK Ltd., said he wasn't surprised to hear that Kmart will maintain corporate operations here for up to a year.
"After they've done some due diligence, they're finding pulling this thing together may be tougher than they thought it would be," he said.
Kmart has long said it needs to move out of its Troy headquarters.
Before the merger, the discount retailer had been planning to move its headquarters to a smaller building in Michigan, or even Atlanta.
Real estate development experts say they expect that in the long term, some or all of the Kmart site in Troy probably will be redeveloped as a mixed-use project including a hotel, retail and residential.
The Big Beaver Road site has an assessed value of $12 million, but would likely sell for more given its close proximity to Somerset Collection, the state's premier shopping mall.
Kmart began as S.S. Kresge Co. on Woodward Avenue in Detroit in 1899. The company moved its headquarters to Troy in 1972.
03-09-2005, 11:54 AM
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Big impact on my job as we do the newspaper ads for KMart, I drive there everyday lol. Also sucks cause that's a lot of people that'll be loosing jobs, KMart's like the "white collar" version of a GM factory.. around here pretty much everyone knows atleast one person that is associated or knows someone that works at their HQ.
03-09-2005, 10:49 PM
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Originally Posted by Drake.2
KMart is still in business? Well I'll be a....
They closed 'em all down here (or most of them anyway).
They closed 'em all down here (or most of them anyway).
03-10-2005, 01:37 AM
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K-Mart is having major malfunctions. They have come so close to losing it a couple of times. We are killing the ones here. On average we have 5-10 times more cars in our parking lot than them, and they have groceries, and we aren't even a Supercenter. Sux to be them.
03-10-2005, 02:44 AM
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The only thing I ever go to Target for is their odds and ends......stuff like shelves, bathroom decor, etc., never for the usual items that I buy.
Of course I don't go to Walmart all that often either (its far), I usually just go to H.E.B. (which is unique to TX I think).
Of course I don't go to Walmart all that often either (its far), I usually just go to H.E.B. (which is unique to TX I think).
