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Foot Locker

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(Redirected from Venator Group)
For the storage box, see Footlocker (luggage).

Foot Locker, Inc.
Formerly
  • Woolworth Corporation (1989–1998)
  • Venator Group (1998–2001)
Company typePublic
IndustryClothing
PredecessorF. W. Woolworth Company
FoundedSeptember 12, 1974; 50 years ago (1974-09-12) in City of Industry, California, U.S.
FoundersF. W. Woolworth and Santiago Lopez
Headquarters
New York City
,
U.S.
Number of locations
2,523 stores (2023)[1]
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Brands
  • Foot Locker
  • Kids Foot Locker
  • Lady Foot Locker
  • House Of Hoops
RevenueDecrease US$8.15 billion (2023)[1]
Decrease US$142 million (2023)[1]
Decrease US$−330 million (2023)[1]
Total assetsDecrease US$6.87 billion (2023)[1]
Total equityDecrease US$2.89 billion (2023)[1]
Number of employees
46,846 (2023)[1]
SubsidiariesChamps Sports
WSS
Runner's Point
Sidestep
Websitefootlocker.com

Foot Locker, Inc. is an American multinational sportswear and footwear retailer headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City,[2] and operating in over 40 countries.

Although established in 1974, and founded as a separate company in 1988, Foot Locker's roots date to 1879, as it is a successor corporation to the F. W. Woolworth Company (“Woolworth's”), which changed its name to Foot Locker in 2001, as many of its freestanding stores were Kinney Shoes and Woolworth's locations.[3] The company operates the eponymous “Foot Locker” chain of athletic footwear retail outlets (along with “Kids Foot Locker” and “Lady Foot Locker” stores), and other athletic-based divisions including Champs Sports, Footaction USA, House of Hoops, and Eastbay/Footlocker.com, which owns the rights to Final-Score. The company is also famous for its employees' uniforms at its flagship Foot Locker chain, resembling those of referees.

Foot Locker located inside Southern Park Mall, Boardman, Ohio.

According to the company's filings with the SEC, as of January 2017, Foot Locker, Inc. had 3,363 primarily mall-based stores in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Nearly 70% of its products are from Nike.[4]

History

[edit]

In 1963, the F. W. Woolworth Company purchased the Kinney Shoe Corporation and operated it as a subsidiary. In the 1960s, Kinney branched into specialty shoe stores, including Stylco in 1967, Susie Casuals in 1968, and Foot Locker on September 12, 1974. The first Foot Locker opened in the Puente Hills Mall in City of Industry, California.[5] Woolworth also diversified its portfolio of specialty stores in the 1980s, including Afterthoughts, Northern Reflections, Rx Place, and Champs Sports. By 1989, the company pursued an aggressive strategy of multiple specialty store formats targeted at enclosed shopping malls. The idea was that if a particular concept failed at a given mall, the company could quickly replace it with a different concept. The company aimed for ten stores in each of the country's major shopping malls, but this never came to pass as Woolworth never developed that many successful specialty store formats.

In April 1989, the F.W. Woolworth Company reincorporated as a separate company, known as the Woolworth Corporation in the state of New York. The Woolworth Corporation was responsible for the operations of the Foot Locker stores, among the other specialty chains operated by Woolworth's. One of its first moves was the acquisition of Champs Sports and renaming itself the Woolworth Athletic Group.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the F.W. Woolworth Company's flagship department store chain fell into decline, ultimately culminating in the closure of the last stores operating under the name of Woolworth's in the United States in 1997. Deciding to continue aggressive expansion into the athletic business in the following years, the company acquired Eastbay in 1997, which was the largest athletic catalog retailer in the United States, as well as subsequent purchases of regional storefront retailers Sporting Goods (purchased in 1997) and The Athletic Fitters (purchased in 1998). After 1997, Wal-Mart replaced Woolworth in the Dow Jones average. The Woolworth Corporation remained the parent company of Foot Locker, and in June 1998 it changed its name to "Venator Group, Inc." By the 1990s, Foot Locker was responsible for more than 70 percent of Kinney Shoe Corp. sales, while traditional shoe retailer Kinney was in decline. Venator announced shuttering of the remaining Kinney Shoe and Footquarters stores on September 16, 1998.[citation needed]

Foot Locker store, Tower City Center, Cleveland, Ohio
A Foot Locker flagship store in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
Foot Locker in Hillcrest Mall
Foot Locker, Southside Wandsworth, London
A Foot Locker store at the Bentley Mall, Fairbanks, Alaska

As the "Foot Locker" brand had become the Woolworth/Venator company's top performing line, on November 2, 2001, Venator changed its name to Foot Locker, Inc.[6] On November 19, 2004, Foot Locker announced that its quarterly profit rose 19 percent, helped by stronger sales.[7]

In 2004, Foot Locker acquired the Footaction USA brand and approximately 350 stores from Footstar for $350 million (~$541 million in 2023).[8] On April 14, 2004, Foot Locker Inc. announced that it agreed to buy about 350 Footaction stores from bankrupt Footstar Inc. for $160 million (~$247 million in 2023) to expand in urban areas.[9]

On January 10, 2005, the company announced that Nick Grayston was promoted to President and Chief Executive Officer of its Foot Locker U.S. division, succeeding Tim Finn, who retired from the company.[10]

In 2007, Foot Locker joined with schoolPAX[11] to launch the Foot Locker School Rewards Program,[12] designed to provide charitable donations to schools who sign up and shop at Foot Locker with a custom-coded key tag or school code.

Foot Locker purchased CCS, a skateboarding equipment retailer, from Alloy for $103 million in cash.[13]

In 2011, Foot Locker joined DoSomething.Org for the Foot Locker Scholar Athletes program, which honors high school athletes for demonstrating academic excellence and flexing their hearts on their sports teams and in their communities.

On June 26, 2012, Foot Locker celebrated the 100th anniversary of the first stock offering made by its predecessor, the F. W. Woolworth Company, on the New York Stock Exchange by ringing the Closing Bell for the trading day.

In 2013, the company acquired the German retailer Runners Point Group.[14]

After not meeting corporate expectations, Foot Locker planned to close its CCS unit but sold it to Daddies Board Shop in 2014.[13]

Foot Locker has steadily risen in Fortune 500 rank, from 446 in 2011[15] to 363 in 2018.[16] Foot Locker recorded a record turnover of 7.151 million dollars at the end of the fiscal year 2015.[17]

In 2019, Foot Locker invested $100 million (~$118 million in 2023) in GOAT, an online resale marketplace for sneakers.[18] In 2021, Foot Locker acquired Los Angeles–based athletic retailer WSS and Tokyo-based Atmos.[19] In 2022, Foot Locker announced it would aim to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.[20]

Several Foot Locker stores were damaged in rioting and looting, with two locations destroyed by arson, during the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis–Saint Paul in May 2020.[21][22][23]

A Foot Locker in Ireland was looted in the 2023 Dublin riot.[citation needed]

Controversies

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On February 12, 1999, a federal jury in Austin awarded $341,000 (equivalent to $586,579 in 2023)[24] to a former Foot Locker shoe store manager who said the company systematically discriminated against its African American employees by offering more opportunities for promotions to white managers.[25]

Stores

[edit]

Americas

  • United States: 781 (includes US territories)
    • Puerto Rico: 19
    • US Virgin Islands: 2
    • Guam: 1
  • Canada: 84

Asia-Pacific

  • Australia: 84
  • New Zealand: 15
  • Israel: 74
  • Saudi Arabia: 16
  • United Arab Emirates: 10
  • Kuwait: 10
  • South Korea: 10
  • Bahrain: 4
  • Oman: 3
  • Qatar: 5
  • Lebanon: 2
  • Jordan: 2
  • Indonesia: 6
  • Malaysia: 5
  • Singapore: 7
  • Hong Kong: 6
  • Macau: 2
  • Philippines: 8
  • Vietnam: 1

Europe

  • Italy: 179
  • France: 146
  • Germany: 83
  • Spain: 60
  • United Kingdom: 59
  • Netherlands: 41
  • Belgium: 20
  • Portugal: 16
  • Czech Republic: 10
  • Switzerland: 9
  • Austria: 8
  • Poland: 8
  • Ireland: 7
  • Denmark: 6
  • Hungary: 6
  • Luxembourg: 5
  • Sweden: 5
  • Norway: 5
  • Greece: 3
  • Romania: 3

Closing

[edit]
  • in 2023, Footlocker announced plan to close up to 400 low performing stores by 2026.[26]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Foot Locker, Inc. 2023 Annual Report (Form 10-K)". sec.gov. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. March 28, 2024.
  2. ^ "Foot Locker, Inc." Foot Locker. Retrieved on January 22, 2010.
  3. ^ "COMPANY NEWS; VENATOR, ONCE WOOLWORTH, IS NOW FOOT LOCKER". The New York Times. November 2, 2001. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 7, 2023.
  4. ^ Bain, Marc (August 18, 2017). "Foot Locker has a Nike problem". Quartz (publication). Retrieved August 18, 2017.
  5. ^ "The Evolution of Foot Locker Stores Over 40 Years". Sole Collector.
  6. ^ Venator Group, Inc. Announces Name Change to Foot Locker, Inc., Retail Operations and Construction, November 2, 2001
  7. ^ "Foot Locker Profit Up".
  8. ^ Scardino, Emily. Foot Locker acquires Footaction Stores to step up growth, DSN Retailing Today, May 3, 2004
  9. ^ "Foot Locker to buy about 350 stores".
  10. ^ "FOOT LOCKER, INC. ANNOUNCES DIVISIONAL MANAGEMENT CHANGES". Archived from the original on December 29, 2010.
  11. ^ "School Pax Escola de Negócios". Archived from the original on November 27, 2010. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
  12. ^ "Foot Locker School Rewards". Archived from the original on April 22, 2009.
  13. ^ a b Stacy Cowley (September 17, 2015). "Picking Up CCS Where Foot Locker Left Off". NYT.
  14. ^ 4-traders (July 10, 2013). "Foot Locker, Inc. : Completes Acquisition of Runners Point Group". 4-Traders. Retrieved August 12, 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  15. ^ Brett Krasnove (May 9, 2014). "Fortune 500 - Fortune". Fortune.
  16. ^ "Foot Locker, Inc". Fortune. Archived from the original on March 16, 2020. Retrieved December 18, 2018.
  17. ^ Gonzalez-Rodriguez, Angela (March 9, 2015). "Foot Locker, a foot ahead market expectations". FashionUnited. Retrieved June 11, 2015.
  18. ^ "Foot Locker invests $100 million in GOAT Group". TechCrunch. February 7, 2019. Retrieved April 1, 2022.
  19. ^ "Foot Locker to Buy Two Retailers for $1.1 Billion". Reuters. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved August 10, 2021.
  20. ^ "Foot Locker, Inc. Announces Ambition to Achieve Net Zero Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions by 2050 or Sooner". ESG News. March 24, 2022. Retrieved April 1, 2022.
  21. ^ Penrod, Josh; Sinner, C.J. (July 13, 2020). "Buildings damaged in Minneapolis, St. Paul after riots". Star Tribune. Retrieved May 5, 2022.
  22. ^ Uren, Adam (June 1, 2020). "A list of the buildings damaged, looted in Minneapolis and St. Paul". Bring Me The News. Retrieved May 5, 2022.
  23. ^ Saavedre-Weis, Isabel (June 4, 2020). "A list of St. Paul businesses damaged during the rioting". St. Paul Pioneer Press. Retrieved May 5, 2022.
  24. ^ Johnston, Louis; Williamson, Samuel H. (2023). "What Was the U.S. GDP Then?". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved November 30, 2023. United States Gross Domestic Product deflator figures follow the MeasuringWorth series.
  25. ^ "Foot Locker loses race bias suit; African American says he was given".
  26. ^ Kavilanz, Parija (March 20, 2023). "Foot Locker is closing 400 stores by 2026 | CNN Business". CNN. Retrieved June 26, 2024.
[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Foot Locker.
  • Official website
  • History of Kinney Shoes
  • Business data for Foot Locker, Inc.:
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