Filene's Basement, and its sister company, Filene's Department Store, were wholly-owned by
Federated Department Stores of Cincinnati. The two entities shared many operating systems, including payroll, benefits, and a common credit card. Top executives, at the time, included: Sam DiPhillippo (Marketing), Audie Dunham and Kathleen Collman (HR), and others.
Following the ill-fated acquisition of Federated by Campeau Corp. of Canada, Filene's Basement was spun-off. It became a privately-held venture in a LBO arrangement led by then-CEO & President Jim Anathan and Chairman Sam Gerson and other investors. The entity became known as 'Filene's Basement, Inc.', and remained headquartered in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
In April 1988, Filene's was acquired by
May Department Stores and the fortunes of the stores diverged. Filene's Basement, now a separate company, embarked on a massive but ill-advised strategy of expansion that, ten years later, in August 1998, forced the chain to seek
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection; more than 30 outlets were shuttered. Filene's Basement's journey through the bankruptcy process was brief, and expansion soon resumed, albeit more cautiously.
[3]
In March 1999, the company debuted a new weekend warehouse store concept,
Aisle 3. The stores, averaging 60,000 square feet (5,600 m2), operated only Friday through Sunday and were located near major metropolitan areas.
[4] Plans were to open at least 10 stores by the end of 1999 and 40 to 50 stores in the following years, but ultimately only eight opened. All
Aisle 3 location were closed following the purchase of Filene's Basement by
Value City Department Stores Inc. (later Retail Ventures, Inc.) in March 2000. Soon afterward, three Filene's Basement locations reopened in the vicinity of Washington, D.C., and modest efforts at expansion resumed.
[5]
In 2006, the original
Filene's chain of which the store had once been a part, was purchased by its rival
Macy's Department Stores. Because many store locations between the two chains did not overlap, most Filene's locations were spared and reopened as Macy's, but the flagship location (which sat across the street from an existing Macy's store) was not. Macy's shuttered the Filene's in downtown Boston directly above the flagship Filene's Basement location and sold the building for redevelopment. That Filene's Basement location was subsequently closed on September 3, 2007, to accommodate the redevelopment project.
....
The economic crisis took its toll on the chain and owner Retail Ventures, Inc announced on January 20, 2009 its plans to close 11 of the chain's 36 stores.
[7] The store closures did not help and on April 22, 2009, Retail Ventures, Inc. announced that it had sold the remaining 25 Filene's Basement stores to the Buxbaum Group, a company that specializes in liquidations. The Buxbaum Group did not indicate what it would do with its acquisition, although Retail Ventures had previously indicated that the company's future was uncertain.
[8] The store officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on May 4, while real estate investors Crown Acquisitions and the Chetrit Group offered $22 million to purchase the name and leases on 17 of Filene's Basement's most profitable stores. They announced that they would keep the stores open and focus on castoffs from luxury-goods makers.
[9] On June 15, 2009
Syms and Vornado were declared the winners of the bankruptcy auction of Filene's Basement's assets when the Syms-Vornado group agreed to pay 62.4 million dollars, subject to bankruptcy court approval
