Elder-Beerman



The Elder-Beerman Stores Corp., commonly known as Elder-Beerman, was an American chain of department stores founded in 1883 and whose last stores closed in 2018. The chain, based primarily in the Midwestern United States, was composed of 31 stores in eight states at the time of its liquidation in 2018, and peaked around 2003 with 68 stores and $670 million in annual sales.

History
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The store was opened by Thomas Elder, William Hunter, Jr. and Russell Johnston on East Third Street. That early ad stated the store's aim was "to present to the public good, dependable merchandise at sensible prices."

In 1896, the store moved to Dayton's newest skyscraper, the Reibold Building, at the corner of Fourth and Main streets. The company became the Elder & Johnston Co. and remained there for more than six decades.

1883: An advertisement in the Dayton Daily Journal announces the establishment of the Boston Dry Goods Store. One of the owners is Thomas Elder.

1896: Elder moves his store to the Reibold Building at Fourth and Main streets. This becomes the Elder & Johnston Co. department store's home for more than six decades.

1950: Arthur Beerman enters the retail store ownership business and soon opens "Beermans for Bargains" junior department stores in the McCook and Northtown shopping centers.

1953: Bee-Gee Shoes formed in Beerman partnership with Max Gutmann.

1956: Beerman buys the downtown Home Store.

1962: Beerman merges his Beerman stores with the Elder & Johnston Co.

1963: The Northwest store at Philadelphia Drive and Siebenthaler Avenue opens.

1968: The Hamilton store opens in the downtown redevelopment area. Shortly thereafter, the Richmond, Ind., store opens.

1970: Arthur Beerman dies; Max Gutmann becomes president.

1976: The Courthouse Square store in downtown Dayton opens. The store is five floors, including the basement.

1978: The chain moves into Hamilton County with the purchase of the downtown and suburban Cincinnati Mabley & Carew stores.

1981: Margos La Mode chain purchased.

1987: Elder-Beerman stores open in Michigan.

1989: Elder-Beerman acquires 10 Meis department stores located in Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky, bringing the total number of the companys department stores to 43.

1991: Total number of Elder-Beerman department stores rises to 47. Gutmann retires; Milton Hartley named president; distribution center opens in Fairborn.

1992: Newspaper reports Elder-Beerman Co. is negotiating to buy the 25-store H.C. Prange Co. department store chain of Green Bay, Wis.

1993: 50th store opens at the Mall on Fairfield Commons, Beavercreek.

1994: Beermans widow, Jessie Beerman, dies; Eastown store closes.

1995: Milton Hartley resigns; Max Gutmann and Herbert Glaser return from retirement as chief executives.

1996: With 52 stores, Elder-Beerman files five-year plan asking court to remain independent. Company asks for second extension of time to file reorganization plan.

1997: Frederick J. Mershad hired from Proffitt's Inc. as new president and chief executive. The company files reorganization plan. A settlement is reached that prevents Carson Pirie Scott and Proffitt's from attempting a takeover of Elder-Beerman, at least until after Jan. 31, 1999. The company completes bankruptcy reorganization on Dec. 30.

1998: Elder-Beerman is an independent company with stock, held largely by creditors, traded on Nasdaq. In a surprise announcement, Elder-Beerman unveiled plans to replace McAlpin's in the Dayton Mall. After 17 months in the mall, McAlpin's said it failed to find a suitable site for a second Dayton area store. In the fall, Elder-Beerman signed a 10-year lease on the 82,000-square-foot Lazarus department store at the Lazarus Kettering Shopping Center.

1999: Elder-Beerman finished its first year as a publicly held company following bankruptcy proceedings with rising sales and growing profits. Later, a Washington state-based investment group purchased a large chunk of Elder-Beerman Stores Corp. stock and demanded that the board either fire top management or sell the company.

2000: Elder-Beerman sells Shoebilee Inc. for $10 million (~$ in ). Elder-Beerman's board begins looking for a buyer, entering into confidentiality agreements with eight parties.

2001: Reynolds & Reynolds moves into three floors of the five-floor Courthouse Square store, leaving the department store with two selling floors. Elder-Beerman reports losses.

2002: Former Mead Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Steven C. Mason, is named Elder-Beerman chairman. Former Belk Inc. executive Byron "Bud" Bergren is named president and chief executive. Elder-Beerman closes its Courthouse Square store, downtown Dayton's last department store, amid a dispute over lease rates.

  March 27, 2018 May 18, 2018  

2003: After a lengthy bidding war, York, Pa.-based Bon-Ton acquired Elder-Beerman for $92.8 million (~$ in ). The acquisition is Bon-Ton's largest, doubling the size of the company from 72 stores to 140 stores across 17 states.

2004: Bon-Ton announced the elimination of 311 of 450 jobs at the Elder-Beerman Stores Corp. headquarters in Moraine. Bon-Ton management acknowledges the company "did not properly anticipate" challenges with the merger. Bergren, who engaged in a bidding war against Bon-Ton and lost, is named the company's chief executive and president.

2006: Bon-Ton announced plans to purchase four Parisian department stores — including the Beavercreek store— from Belk Inc.

2007: Bon-Ton announced plans to renovate and reconfigure its Elder-Beerman and recently acquired Parisian stores at Fairfield Commons Mall and operate both under the Elder-Beerman nameplate.

2009: Bon-Ton announces the elimination of 1,150 positions and announces plans to close its Elder-Beerman store in Hamilton.

2010: Elder-Beerman in Centerville closes to make way for a Kroger Marketplace.

2011: Bon-Ton announces closure of the Northwest Plaza shopping center, scheduled to close in 2012. Bergren announces retirement as chief executive to become chairman of the board. He is replaced as chief executive by Brendan Hoffman.

2012: Elder-Beerman store at Upper Valley Mall set for closure.

2014: Two Elder-Beerman stores at Fairfield Commons are combined under a consolidated store. Bon-Ton announces move of jobs from Fairborn distribution center to a new distribution center in West Jefferson, near Columbus. Kathryn Bufano is named president and chief executive officer.

2017: Middletown Elder-Beerman store closes. Bon-Ton president and chief executive Bufano resigns, and former chief operating officer William Tracy takes over. Bon-Ton hires a restructuring firm to look into bankruptcy as it grapples with more than $900 million of debt.

2018: Bon-Ton files for bankruptcy.

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In 1883, Elder-Beerman history began when the Boston Dry Goods Store was opened on East Third Street in downtown Dayton, Ohio by Thomas Elder, William Hunter, Jr. and Russell Johnston, selling textiles, clothing and groceries. In 1896, the store moved to a new 11-story skyscraper, the Reibold Building, at the corner of Fourth and Main streets; it operated there as the Elder & Johnston Company department store for over 60 years. For most of its later history, its headquarters was located at 3155 El-Bee Road, Moraine, Ohio and from 1976 to 2015 it operated a flagship 6-floor location in Downtown Dayton, located at Courthouse Plaza, 40 N. Ludlow St., Dayton.

Beerman and Gutmann
In 1930, after a short career with Elder & Johnston, Arthur Beerman, founder of the Elder-Beerman Stores Corp., branched out on his own and by 1945, Beerman Stores was incorporated. In 1950, he opened "Beermans for Bargains" junior department stores in the McCook Shopping Center in north Dayton and in the Northtown Shopping Center just north of Dayton in Harrison Township, Montgomery County.

In 1953, Beerman formed a partnership with Max Gutmann and together they established the Bee Gee Shoe Corporation, which later operated stores branded as El-Bee Shoe Outlets and Shoebilee! for many years. They also operated Margo's specialty clothing stores.

In 1956, Beerman purchased the Home Store, a department store in downtown Dayton. Throughout the 1950s, Beerman and Gutmann expanded Beerman Stores throughout Dayton's suburbs; in 1961, Gutmann became executive vice president and general manager of the chain.

In 1962, Beerman Stores merged with the Elder & Johnston Company to form Elder-Beerman; at this time, the Elder & Johnston Company's Reibold Building location was closed in favor of the Home Store location. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Elder-Beerman Stores Corp. expanded throughout western Ohio and surrounding states, including standalone furniture stores, competing with its Dayton-based rival, Rike's (now Macy's).

After Beerman
After Beerman's death in 1970, Gutmann was promoted to chairman and chief executive officer. In 1976, the downtown Dayton store was relocated to a new building on Courthouse Square, which had five stories, including the basement. In 1978, Elder-Beerman expanded into the Cincinnati area, purchasing Mabley & Carew's four stores, one in downtown Cincinnati and three in its suburbs.

In 1985, Herb Glaser was named president and CEO of the department store division. With Herb Glaser as president, Gutmann and Glaser developed the Elder-Beerman franchise through the 1980s and early 1990s. When the company was forced to file for Chapter 11 reorganization in 1995, Max Gutmann and Herb Glaser returned from retirement to turn the company around. During the bankruptcy, Frederick J. Mershad asked to replace Gutmann as chairman and chief executive officer. As a result of the bankruptcy, Elder-Beerman closed all of their Margo's LaMode stores in early 1996.

Elder-Beerman acquired three chains throughout its history: Cincinnati-based Mabley & Carew in 1978; Terre Haute, Indiana-based Meis in 1989; and Wheeling, West Virginia-based Stone & Thomas in 1998.

1999 and 2003 prototypes
In late 1999, Elder-Beerman opened prototype stores in Jasper, Indiana; Warsaw, Indiana; and Frankfort, Kentucky. These stores included service centers, open-stock cosmetic and shoe departments, and courtesy telephones. Four years later, the chain opened smaller-scale prototypes in DeKalb, Illinois and Muscatine, Iowa, the latter being their first Iowa location. These stores represented a new marketing strategy of operating smaller-format stores in mid-sized markets.

The Bon-Ton and liquidation
Elder-Beerman was acquired by The Bon-Ton in 2003. At that point, Elder-Beerman was the ninth largest independent department store chain, and had exited bankruptcy and was in discussions to go private when Bon-Ton stepped in, offering more cash for outstanding stock. Elder-Beerman's brand was kept active on its 68 stores in eight states after the merger, and Elder-Beerman CEO Bud Bergren would become CEO of Bon-Ton in 2004.

In 2012, The Bon-Ton began re-branding several Elder-Beerman stores to some of its other nameplates. Several in Michigan and Indiana were converted to Carson's or Younkers. This re-branding reduced the number of Elder-Beerman stores to 37, primarily in Ohio.

In March 2017, Elder-Beerman opened in-store "Close to Home" shops selling locally-made and themed products, an initiative being rolled out throughout Bon-Ton's nameplates, in its Dayton Mall, The Mall at Fairfield Commons, Huber Heights and Kettering stores in the Dayton area. In April 2017, a "Close to Home" shop was opened at the Eclipse Center store in Beloit, Wisconsin.

On April 17, 2018, The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc., as a part of its own Chapter 11 bankruptcy, was purchased by a joint venture composed of the holders of the company's 8.0% Second Lien Secured Notes due 2021 and Great American Group, LLC and Tiger Capital Group, LLC., with the intention of liquidating The Bon-Ton and its subsidiaries, including Elder-Beerman, which had operated for 135 years.

In the Dayton area, the Elder-Beerman stores in Kettering and in the Miami Valley Centre Mall in Piqua closed on August 26, 2018. All remaining Elder-Beerman stores in the chain, as well as all other Bon-Ton-owned department stores, closed on August 29, 2018.

On August 31, 2018, Elder-Beerman's website, along with all other Bon-Ton-owned retail websites, were updated with "stay tuned" messages, indicating that the company's respective brands would come back in some form; the liquidator stated that the company's intellectual property was being sold. On September 6, it was reported that the purchaser was CSC Generation, which agreed to purchase Bon-Ton's customer database as well as its trademarks and websites. While the retailer would become a smaller, more agile e-commerce business focused on its website, there are plans to reopen some physical stores in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. On September 14, the new owner relaunched websites for all of its department store brands. In addition to apparel and home goods, the websites also sell televisions and major kitchen appliances; they also offer a lease-to-own program where consumers pay a portion of the merchandise cost monthly rather than paying the entire price upfront. There has been no indication that any former Elder-Beerman locations would be reopened.