Mervyn's in bankruptcy

In a great retail coup, Kohl’s and Forever 21 have jointly bid on 46 failing and flailing Mervyn’s, which is currently in bankruptcy, for a paltry $6.25 million. I can name at least a dozen houses in Los Angeles County that cost more than that. The bid will give Kohl’s rights to 31 Mervyn’s stores and Forever 21 will take over the other 15. 

An average Mervyn’s store is about 80,000 square feet. That’s no small beans.

I’ve only been inside Kohl’s once when I was traveling in Indianapolis for a few days, but it looked exactly like a Mervyn’s - inside and out. I’m actually pretty surprised that Kohl’s has been doing so well. Since that one trip to Kohl’s I always thought it would fail because of its resemblance to Mervyn’s - boy, was I wrong. 

And the always formidable Death Star of the retailing world, Forever 21, is growing at a remarkable rate. For years I’ve talked about how their business model is working, despite pissing off many designers for copying their work and putting a lot of similar retail stores that once held the gleaming eyes of teens everywhere like Wet Seal and Charlotte Russe to shame. I hate to do it, but I’ve got to tip my hat off to Forever 21’s owners Do Won Chang and his wife, Jin Sook Chang. After coming to America from South Korea, they knew exactly what they wanted to do and opened their first store in 1984 called Fashion 21 in Los Angeles. And now, their stores are highly coveted by mall owners everywhere because they know the financial windfall they can experience with F 21.