Black Excellence: Marvin Ellison Becomes J.C. Penny's First Black CEO

[ORDER_66]

JC penny tho???

 

[mrken12]

JC penny tho???

It's still a win.

 

[DrX]

Where I live a lot.. but... I'm...... not..... in the projects

take that L bruh

 

[ORDER_66]

It's still a win.

Yeah, I guess....

 

[The Embellished Bell Hair]

JC Penny is one of the worst performing companies in the market right now. Its in the news DAILY.

They just gave the brother a chance to be at the helm of a sinking ship

They think they're slick

Anybody who's alert knows that a white dude ran that ship aground so it's a good ignoramus test if someone holds Marvin responsible for it.

 

[Bunchy Carter]

Damn the hate is running deep

 

[El Bombi]

Black people loves titles given to us by our Masta CAC.

Look at your President brehs.

I guess nikkas should be happy that Uncle Thomas is in the Supreme Court because he represent black people.

 

[LezJepzin]

I'm very mixed about this.

Yeah, it's good he's become JCPenney's first black CEO but the company has gone to shyt the last four years. This is coming from someone who was there before, during and after that COCKSUCKER Ron Johnson era taking them there

I wish him the best , but him having his work cut out for him is truly an understatement.

 

[El Bombi]

 

[NobodyReally]

That's awesome. Props to him. And what a beautiful family.

I guess people missed this part:

At Home Depot, Ellison was responsible for trying to make the chain’s massive stores easier for customers to navigate after service deteriorated under former CEO Bob Nardelli. Ellison, 49, focused on simplifying tasks for workers to free up more time to assist customers. The strategy paid off as sales rebounded, helping the company’s stock almost triple in the past four years.

 

[Worthless Loser]

I am bumping this thread because I was looking around for what I wanted to do for my final project in class since my topic was due tonight. Found a black man was the CEO of JC Penney and decided to go all in.

It's nice to see the people in here criticizing him for taking this job. Because the results shows that #blackexcellence is turning JC Penney around which is something the two previous CEO's failed to do as their strategies created significant revenue decreases.

As of Feb 2016.

And the award for best department store in a starring role goes to ... JCPenney!

While Macy's, Kohl's, Sears and many other big retailers reported lousy results for the holidays due to unseasonably warm weather and competition from a company named after a river in South America, JCPenney has staged an impressive turnaround.

JCPenney (JCP) reported same-store sales growth of 4.1% in the fourth quarter and predicted another 3% to 4% jump for all of 2016.

The stock surged 15% Friday and was up another 6% Monday. Shares have now soared more than 50% so far this year and are near their highest levels since October 2014.

It is an amazing rebound for JCPenney -- a company that not that long ago appeared to be on death's door.

There was the disastrous tenure of former CEO Ron Johnson, who banned promotional sales and offered free haircuts to kids. The retailer had a nasty fight over Johnson's replacement with shareholder Bill Ackman -- who has since sold his stake.

Analysts rushed to cut their price targets on the stock, with one slashing it to $1 in 2013. JCPenney was close to becoming a penny stock. Bankruptcy rumors swirled.

Johnson's replacement Myron Ullman -- who left the company to make way for Johnson in the first place -- got the company's turnaround started.

He wisely chose to refocus the company on popular private label brands that Johnson tried to kill off even though customers loved them -- things like St. John's Bay, Arizona jeans and Stafford.

But Ullman ultimately failed to excite Wall Street as well.

Under his watch, the company came up with a cringe-worthy (and perverted if your mind is in the gutter) marketing slogan of "When it fits, you feel it." (Boom chicka wow wow!)

That's all in the past now. JCPenney hired Home Depot (HD) veteran Marvin Ellison in October 2014 and the company has kicked it into an even higher gear under his watch.

JCPenney has stepped up its investments online to better compete with Amazon (AMZN,Tech30). Ellison has continued to emphasize the private label brands.

The company even recently announced a "Penney Days" promotion -- select times of the year when certain private label items will literally cost a penny. It has been touting this aggressively on social media with the hashtag #SoWorthIt.

JCPenney also has just started to sell appliances again, a move that analysts feel will put a lot of pressure on struggling rival Sears (SHLD).

Ellison said in a conference call with analysts Friday that the decision came following a "failed search" analysis. The company asked customers what products they were looking for on JCPenney.com that they couldn't find. Appliances was at the top.

"We're trying something different. We're actually listening to the customers," he quipped.

And the company is changing up its marketing strategy. It had been the exclusive retail sponsor of the Academy Awards for the past 14 years but JCPenney was nowhere to be found on Sunday.

That's because it decided to end its relationship with the Oscars. Kohl's (KSS) took its place.

During the conference call, Ellison said that the company's previous marketing campaigns were "outdated" and needed to be more modern. He plans on focusing even more on social media and online search.

"As we all know, that's a more efficient way to communicate and it's less costly than traditional print or TV," Ellison said.

JCPenney still has a long way to go before it has fully recovered, however. But it's on the right track.

The company continued to lose money last year, although it bled less red ink in 2015 than a year earlier.

Wall Street expects a smaller loss again this year and analysts are forecasting a return to profitability in 2017.

So while competitors like Macy's (M) and Sears continue to lose customers and try and convince Wall Street that layoffs and real estate sales are the cure for their ills, JCPenney is quietly just doing what good retailers do -- convincing people to come shop.

As of May 2016:

J.C. Penney JCP 0.53% said on Monday that its profit in the first fiscal quarter came in higher than expected, providing reassurance to investors worried that its turnaround may be stalling and subtly refuting a media report last week saying weak April sales were hurting its bottom line.

Penney is in the middle of a turnaround that has seen it outperform rivals like Macy’s M 0.83% , Kohl’s KSS 0.25% , and Sears SHLD -1.19% for several quarters, including the crucial holiday season period. But last week, a New York Post article cited an internal memo outlining cost cuts supposedly put in place to protect Penney’s profit amid softer April sales. Penney’s shares, which had already fallen 25% from a 52-week high in March, tumbled 7% on Friday on the unconfirmed report.

As of AUGUST 2016:

PLANO, Texas - (Aug. 12, 2016) - J. C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE: JCP) today announced financial results for its second quarter ended July 30, 2016. Comparable sales increased 2.2 % for the second quarter, delivering a two-year stack of 6.3%. Net loss improved 52% to $(56) million versus the prior year.

Marvin R. Ellison, chairman and chief executive officer, said, "We are pleased with the sequential improvement we achieved throughout the second quarter, and our solid performance across all key metrics is encouraging. We exceeded our profitability expectations, achieving an $85 million or 59 % increase in EBITDA to $229 million for the quarter. We are continuing to win market share and improve the bottom line of our business thanks to the commitment and hard work of our over 100,000 associates."

Ellison continued, "We are excited about the initiatives we have in place to drive incremental growth in the back half of the year with our appliance rollouts, new Sephora locations, center core refreshes, in-store .com fulfillment and our chain wide rollout of buy online, pick up in store same day. These and other initiatives reinforce our confidence in our ability to achieve $1 billion in EBITDA for 2016."

For the second quarter, gross margin was 37.1 % of sales, a 10 basis point improvement compared to the same period last year.

SG&A expenses for the quarter decreased $48 million to $853 million, or 29.2 % of sales, representing a 210 basis point improvement from last year. These savings were primarily driven by lower corporate overhead, incentive compensation, store controllable costs and more efficient advertising spend.

For the second quarter, the Company delivered a 52% improvement in net loss over the prior year to $(56) million or $(0.18) per share. Excluding the previously announced write-off of unamortized debt issuance costs of $34 million related to the closing of the real estate term loan refinancing and other items, adjusted earnings per share improved 88% to a loss of $(0.05) per share for the second quarter this year compared to a loss of $(0.40) per share last year.

EBITDA improved $85 million to $229 million for the quarter, a 59 % improvement from the same period last year. Excluding restructuring charges and the proportional share of net income from the home office land joint venture, adjusted EBITDA improved 69 % to $233 million, a $95 million improvement from the same period last year.

Oh, and this video is inspiring as hell. It talks about his upbringing. If you don't find this inspiring or motivating, you have no ambition in life:

 

[Bunchy Carter]

I am bumping this thread because I was looking around for what I wanted to do for my final project in class since my topic was due tonight. Found a black man was the CEO of JC Penney and decided to go all in.

It's nice to see the people in here criticizing him for taking this job. Because the results shows that #blackexcellence is turning JC Penney around which is something the two previous CEO's failed to do as their strategies created significant revenue decreases.

As of Feb 2016.


As of May 2016:


As of AUGUST 2016:


Oh, and this video is inspiring as hell. It talks about his upbringing. If you don't find this inspiring or motivating, you have no ambition in life:

Alot of people were hating on the brother and they said he was not going to do a good job, calling him a token negro, well jokes on them lol.

 

[Worthless Loser]

Alot of people were hating on the brother and they said he was not going to do a good job, calling him a token negro, well jokes on them lol.

Exactly. I read up on him and he's all about helping the inner city. Also, I found his twitter:
Marvin Ellison (@MarvinJCPenney) | Twitter

He seems like a good dude to be around. Taking pictures with random cashiers/associates in the stores. I liked the one picture where he had JCPenney give free suits to the 45 black graduates from a high school academy that got accepted into college.

 

[SuikodenII]

to the brother

 

[SuikodenII]

Black people loves titles given to us by our Masta CAC.

Look at your President brehs.

I guess nikkas should be happy that Uncle Thomas is in the Supreme Court because he represent black people.

Very SALTY there.....