Federated Department Stores will further expand the use of the Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s nameplates as it moves to integrate the stores recently acquired through its merger with May Company that was completed on August 30. The giant department store retailer will revamp its regional management structure, closing a number of offices and re-aligning others, and has made the decision to convert the venerable Marshall Fields nameplate to Macy’s. The existing structure will remain in place through the 2005 holiday season.

The Marshall Field's stores will convert to the Macy's nameplate in fall 2006 and be managed under a new Minneapolis-based division that will be known as Macy's North. The new division will include 62 MF stores and one Ayres store and the Macy's store in Minnesota. The Macy’s North division will be part of a new seven geographic alignment that will be effective February 1.

Macy's East, which will have 185 stores, will add 42 Filene's stores, 34 Hecht's stores, 16 Kaufmann's stores, and 12 Strawbridge's stores. Macy's Florida, which will have 62 stores in Florida and Puerto Rico, will add the Macy's East store in San Juan.

Macy's Midwest, which will be based in St. Louis, will have responsibility for 38 locations currently under the Famous-Barr, L.S. Ayres and The Jones Store nameplates, as well as 38 Kaufmann's locations, and will add six Macy's stores. The division will add 24 Macy's stores, three Kaufmann's stores, and one Famous-Barr store by early 2007, giving that division a total of approximately 110 stores in nine states.

Macy's South, based in Atlanta, will encompass what is now the Macy's Central division, but will also add 59 Foley's stores, 33 Hecht's stores, three Macy's stores, and one Famous-Barr store. The division will operate approximately 133 stores in 10 states after all conversions by spring 2007 that will see 24 Macy’s stores moving to the new Midwest division.

Macy's West will add 44 Robinsons-May stores and 17 Foley's for a total of 187 stores in six states. Macy's Northwest, based in Seattle, will add 20 Meier & Frank stores for a total of 71 stores in six states.

Federated will gradually phase out central office operations of the Filene's/Kaufmann's division, the Foley's division, the Hecht's/Strawbridge's division, and the Robinsons-May/Meier & Frank division. The Filene's/Kaufmann's headquarters will be divested in 2006. The merger will result in the divesture of a total of 76 duplicative store locations and the loss of 4,500 divisional headquarters positions and 1,700 May Company corporate jobs. The Filene's at Boston’s Chestnut Hill and Robinsons-May stores at San Diego’s Fashion Valley Center and South Coast Plaza, will be closed in 2006 and later reopened as Bloomingdale's after “extensive remodeling.”

A new Hecht's store currently under construction in Chevy Chase, MD, will be opened as a Bloomingdale's. Bloomingdale's will operate 40 stores after the conversions.

Federated said it intends to study the Lord & Taylor division during the remainder of 2005 and make a decision about its future by the end of 2005.