Peebles (store)

Former department store chain

Peebles

Company type| Department store
Industry| Retail
Founded| 1891; 134 years ago (1891) Lawrenceville, Virginia
Founder| William Smith Peebles
Defunct| 2020
Fate| Bankruptcy
Headquarters| Houston, Texas, U.S.
Products| Apparel, accessories, cosmetics, footwear, and housewares
Parent| Stage Stores, Inc. (2003-2020) BrandX.com (2022-present)
Website| Archived official website at the Wayback Machine (archive index)

Peebles was an American chain of department stores owned by Stage Stores, Inc. and headquartered in Houston, Texas.

Peebles operated stores mainly in the eastern and upper-midwestern United States areas of Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

The store specialized in retailing on-trend men's, women's, and children's apparel, accessories, cosmetics, footwear, and housewares. Brands exclusively found at Peebles included Valerie Stevens; Signature Studio; Sun River; Rustic Blue; Rebecca Malone; and Wishful Park.

A Peebles location in Alpena, Michigan on August 20, 2011

[1]

## History

[edit]

Peebles was founded in 1891 by William Smith Peebles, who opened his first store in Lawrenceville, Virginia.

Peebles mainly concentrated on small towns that didn’t have department stores, thus avoiding bigger cities and higher rents.

In 1981 the company acquired The Collins Company, a line of mid-priced, comparable stores. Collins was based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The family sold the company in 1986 for $85 million (~$200 million in 2023) to two investment banking firms and to Peebles’ senior management.

The company had been sold twice before Stage Stores acquired Peebles in 2003 when it was based in South Hill, Virginia. At the time, Peebles had more than 125 stores primarily in the Mid-Atlantic, Southeastern and Midwest states.[2]

After decades of expansion Peebles acquired the Nashville-based upscale Harveys Department Stores chain in September 1988, renaming the stores as Peebles.[3]

In 1998, Peebles purchased Watson's, a similar chain, later renaming all the Watson's stores as Peebles.

Houston-based Stage Stores purchased Peebles for $167 million in cash and $46.9 million in debt in 2003.[4][5] In August 2019, it was announced that all Peebles stores, along with all other stores operated by Stage Stores Inc, would be converted into Gordmans stores.[6][7]

On May 10, 2020, Stage announced it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and that it would liquidate all locations, Peebles and Gordmans included, unless a buyer purchased the chain.[8] Ultimately, no buyer was found, and going out of business sales began at all locations.[9]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Riddle, Julie (March 20, 2019). "Alpena Peebles to Close". The Alpena News.
2. ^ "After 125 years, Peebles' name on stores in Virginia is ending as locations are converted to off-price concept". Richmond Times Dispatch. 16 August 2019.
3. ^ "Business Brief: Investcorp". The Wall Street Journal. 20 September 1988. ProQuest 398060212.
4. ^ "Stage Stores to buy East Coast retailer for $167M". Houston Business Journal. 7 October 2003. Retrieved 21 January 2016.
5. ^ "Retailer Peebles to Be Acquired For $167 Million Plus Debt". The Wall Street Journal. 8 October 2003. ProQuest 398918501.
6. ^ Wachter, Debbie (August 23, 2019). "Peebles to become off-price clothing store in 2020". New Castle News. Retrieved 2020-08-14.
7. ^ Holliday, Anne (December 30, 2019). "Gordmans Opening in Feb.; Holding Job Fair Next Week". WESB. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
8. ^ Bhattarai, Abha (May 11, 2020). "Stage Stores files for bankruptcy, says it will liquidate more than 700 stores if it can't find a buyer". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 2020-05-12.
9. ^ Harber, Terri (August 6, 2020). "Stage parent company scraps plan for conversion into Gordmans". Mohave Valley Daily News. Archived from the original on 2020-08-05. Retrieved 2020-08-14.

## External links

[edit]

* Official website (Archive)