the company also engaged<\/a> in a $104 million buyback of its own stock on Nov. 21, which it said would \u201cdistribute surplus liquidity and thereby adjust H&M\u2019s capital structure.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201d\u201cThrough a stronger customer offering, an improved gross margin and good cost control, we have strengthened operating profit compared with the same quarter last year,\u201d H&M CEO Daniel Erver told The Independent in September.<\/p>\n
For those who may have never stepped foot in an H&M, the Swedish-based retailer is known for its fast fashion offerings, as well as some homeware items. It\u2019s considered the second-largest international retailer of its kind, after the Spanish company Inditex, and will still maintain eight separate stores across Manhattan even after the two closures in January.<\/p>\n
The store at E. 86th St., which is located across from Old Navy, opened in 2008. As East Side Feed pointed out, it\u2019s not necessarily considered the hottest store in town, as it maintains a measly \u201c2 out of 5\u201d stars on Yelp.<\/p>\n
Straus News stopped by the store on the afternoon of Monday, Nov. 24, to measure the local reaction to the news of its impending doom. Many shoppers were previously unaware.<\/p>\n
One woman, who said she was in town from Spain, said she liked the store \u201cvery much.\u201d As she described it, \u201cyou can have everything at H&M.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another shopper, who was making her way into the store, pointedly said that she doesn\u2019t \u201cuse H&M that much.\u201d However, she had one outstanding complaint: \u201cTheir doors are too heavy, I\u2019ll tell you that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Claire, who was departing the store, seemed accepting of the news. She framed its closure as part of the ruthless commercial cycle of conducting business in New York, saying that \u201cstores open and close…people move in and out.\u201d There were a few brands that stood as exceptions to this rule, she added, such as Bloomingdale\u2019s.<\/p>\n
John, who pointed out that he had heard of the store\u2019s closure from East Side Feed \u201clast night,\u201d noted that he was giving the store something of a first real look before it was gone.<\/p>\n
John noted that an array of businesses were closing their stores, which had given people \u201cno places to shop.\u201d He observed that Madison Ave. was a rare holdout, and wondered whether record-high commercial rents were to blame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"H&M is closing two of its Manhattan stores by the beginning of next year, according to a layoff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63,28480],"class_list":["post-51089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-retailing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}