Williams-Sonoma to Shutter Hold Everything

January 11, 2006  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in on January 2006 Williams-Sonoma will close its 11 Hold Everything stores by the end of the year to focus on its Pottery Barn and West Elm chains.

The retailer will record charges of up to $12 million for shutting down the storage goods chain. Pottery Barn is the company's well-known, successful bricks-and-mortar, online and catalog retailer, and West Elm is the company's more contemporary retail arm.

In addition to Pottery Barn and West Elm, the company's other retail outlets include Williams-Sonoma, Williams-Sonoma Home and Pottery Barn Kids.

Williams-Sonoma said today that it will stop marketing under the Hold Everything brand by the end of this year and will discontinue its catalog sales. Some of the storage merchandise will be sold at the company's other stores.

Total sales for Williams-Sonoma for the eight weeks that ended Dec. 25 rose 12 percent to $868.7 million. For the fourth quarter, the retailer maintained its earnings forecast for $1.07 to $1.09 per share, excluding charges from closing Hold Everything.

Fourth-quarter revenue is expected to be between $1.205 billion and $1.22 billion, narrower than its previous forecast for $1.199 billion to $1.22 billion.